THE  CONTINUITY  OF  CHRISTIAN 

THOUGHT:  A  STUDY  OF  MODERN 

THEOLOGY  IN  THE  LIGHT 

OF  ITS  HISTORY 


ALEXANDER  V.  G.  ^LLEN 

PSOFSSSOa  IH  THX  EPISCOPAL  THEOLOQIOAL  SCHOM, 
m  CAHBAIOOX 


THIRD   EDITION 


BOSTON  

HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY" 

New  York:  11  East  Seventeenth  Street 

1886 


A  lo 


Copyright,  1884, 
Bt  ALEXANDER  Y.  Q.  ALLEN. 


AH  rights  reservecL 


The  Ri«enid0  IVeu,  Cambridgt: 
Blectrotjped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Go. 


DOCTOR  PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

BT 
THE  AUTHOB. 


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THE  JOHN  BOHLEN  LECTURESHIP. 


John  Bohlen,  who  died  in  this  city  on  the  twenty-sixth  day  of  April, 
1874,  bequeathed  to  trustees  a  fund  of  One  Hundred  Thousand  Dollars,  to 
be  distributed  to  religious  and  charitable  objects  in  accordance  with  the 
well-known  wishes  of  the  testator. 

By  a  deed  of  trust,  executed  June  2,  1875,  the  trustees,  under  the  will 
of  Mr.  Bohlen,  transferred  and  paid  over  to  "The  Rector,  Church  Ward- 
ens, and  Vestrymen  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  Philadelphia,"  in 
trust,  a  sum  of  money  for  certain  designated  purposes,  out  of  which  fund 
the  sum  of  Ten  Thousand  Dollars  was  set  apart  for  the  endowment  of 
The  John  Bohlen  Lectureship,  upon  the  following  terms  and  con- 
ditions :  — 

"  The  money  shall  be  iuTcsted  in  good,  substantial,  and  safe  securities,  and 
held  in  trust  for  a  fund  to  be  called  The  John  Bohlen  Lectureship ;  and  the 
income  shall  be  applied  annually  to  the  payment  of  a  qualified  person,  whether 
clergyman  or  layman,  for  the  delivery  and  publication  of  at  least  one  hundred 
copies  of  two  or  more  lecture  sermons.  These  lectures  shall  be  delivered  at  such 
time  and  place,  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  as  the  persons  nominated  to  appoint 
the  lecturer  shall  from  time  to  time  determine,  giving  at  least  six  months"  notice 
to  the  person  appointed  to  deUver  the  same,  when  the  same  may  conveniently  be 
done,  and  in  no  case  selecting  the  same  person  as  lecturer  a  second  time  within  a 
period  of  five  years.  The  payment  shall  be  made  to  said  lecturer,  after  the  lectures 
have  been  printed,  and  received  by  the  trustees,  of  all  the  income  for  the  year 
derived  from  said  fund,  after  defraying  the  expense  of  printing  the  lectures,  and 
the  other  incidental  expenses  attending  the  same. 

'*  The  subject  of  such  lectures  shall  be  such  as  is  within  the  terms  set  forth  in 
the  will  of  the  Rev.  John  Bampton,  for  the  delivery  of  what  are  known  as  the 
*Bampton  Lectures,'  at  Oxford,  or  any  other  subject  distinctively  connected  with 
or  relating  to  the  Christian  Religion. 

•'  The  lecturer  shall  be  appointed  annually  in  the  month  of  May,  or  as  soon 
thereafter  as  can  conveniently  be  done,  by  the  persons  who  for  the  time  being 
shall  hold  the  offices  of  Bishop  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of  the  Diocese 
in  which  is  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity ;  the  Rector  of  said  Church  ;  the  Pro- 
fessor of  Biblical  Learning,  the  Professor  of  Systematic  Divinity,  and  the  Pro- 
fessor of  Ecclesiastical  History,  in  the  Divinity  School  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  Philadelphia. 

"  In  case  either  of  said  offices  are  vacant,  the  others  may  nominate  the  lec- 
turer." 

Under  this  trust  the  Reverend  A.  V.  G.  Allen,  D.  D.,  Professor  in  the 
Episcopal  Theological  School  in  Cambridge,  was  appointed  to  deliver  the 
lectures  for  the  year  1883. 

Phu^ssiphu,  East£E,  1883. 


i 


iCterna  Sapientia,  sese  in  omnibas  rebas, 
maxim^  in  humana  mente,  omnium  maxim^ 
in  Christa  Jesu  manifestavit. 


PEEFACE. 


This  treatise  owes  its  shape  to  the  circumstance 
of  its  having  been  written  as  a  course  of  lectures 
which  were  delivered  in  Philadelphia  on  the  foun- 
dation of  the  late  John  Bohlen.  The  lectures  be- 
ing six  in  number  required  what  may  seem  a  some- 
what artificial  division  of  the  subject-matter.  But 
the  grouping  of  topics,  which  I  was  in  consequence 
constrained  to  make,  will  not,  I  think,  be  found  an 
unnatural  one.  The  lectures  have  been  as  carefully- 
revised  as  my  engagements  would  allow ;  they  are 
published  substantially  as  they  were  spoken,  with  the 
exception  of  several  portions  omitted  in  the  delivery 
for  the  sake  of  brevity. 

It  is  too  much  to  hope  that,  in  a  treatise  like  this 
which  criticises  so  freely  the  various  phases  of  relig- 
ious belief  in  their  historical  development,  I  may 
not  be  regarded  as  having  written  for  a  controversial 
end  against  opinions  as  they  are  still  held  to-day.  I 
should  like,  however,  to  disclaim  such  an  intention.  I 
have  tried  to  deal  with  the  subject  after  the  historical 
method.  My  main  endeavor  has  been  to  show  that  a 
purpose  runs  through  the  whole  history  of  Christian 
thought,  despite  the  apparent  confusion  which  is  to 


viii  PREFACE. 

many  its  predominant  characteristic.  I  have  not  writ- 
ten as  if  the  history  of  theology  were  a  panorama  of 
dissolving  views.  It  is  the  record  of  a  development 
moving  onward,  in  accordance  with  a  divine  law,  to 
some  remoter  consummation.  It  is  because  such  a 
law  is  being  divinely  revealed  to  us  that  we  are  able 
to  recognize  the  pla<je  which  we  occupy  in  history. 

I  am  afraid  it  may  seem  to  some  as  if  I  had  under- 
taken too  large  a  task  for  the  compass  of  one  small 
volume.  It  would  have  been  much  easier  to  have  ex- 
panded than  it  has  been  to  condense.  I  regret  that 
time  has  not  allowed  me  to  condense  more  than  I 
have  done.  A  history  of  religious  thought,  it  must 
be  remembered,  deals  only  with  a  few  fundamental 
principles  easily  traced,  to  which  aU  our  differences 
in  opinion  can  be  referred. 

I  have  sought  to  confine  myself  to  the  immediate 
task  which  I  proposed  to  pursue ;  namely,  to  follow 
the  course  of  Christian  thought.  It  has  not  been 
possible,  however,  to  avoid  the  contiguous  depart- 
ments of  Christian  life,  or  the  history  of  the  church 
as  an  institution.  They  are  often  so  closely  con- 
nected with  Christian  thought,  that  to  separate  them 
is  as  impossible  as  it  is  undesirable.  Some  may  feel 
that  sufficient  prominence  has  not  been  given  to 
names  which  have  long  been  held  in  honor  by  the 
church.  I  confess  it  has  not  been  always  easy  to 
decide  upon  the  relative  degree  of  importance  to  be 
assigned  to  individuals,  so  far  as  their  influence 
upon  Christian  thought  is  concerned.     But  as  it  has 


PREFACE.  IX 

not  been  my  object  to  merely  cbronicle  the  opinions 
of  every  ono  entitled  to  a  place  in  the  history  of 
theology,  I  have  dwelt  only  upon  those  names  that 
mark  changes  or  transitions  in  its  progress,  and  have 
been  content  to  pass  over  others,  however  great  their 
prominence  or  usefulness  in  the  institutional  life  of 
the  church  or  as  saintly  examples  of  Christian  char- 
acter. I  should  like  to  say,  however,  that  if  I  were 
revising  my  book  I  should  try  to  enforce  more  than 
I  have  done  the  importance  of  the  work  of  Origen. 
He  was  a  true  specimen  of  a  great  theologian,  the 
study  of  whose  life  is  of  special  value  to-day,  as  a 
corrective  against  that  tendency  to  underrate  dogma 
in  our  reaction  from  outgrown  dogmas,  or  the  dispo- 
sition to  treat  the  feelings  and  instincts  of  our  na- 
ture as  if  they  were  a  final  refuge  from  the  reason, 
instead  of  a  means  to  a  larger  use  of  the  reason,  — 
a  process  which,  it  is  to  be  feared,  in  many  is  closely 
allied  in  its  spirit  with  the  temper  which  leads  men  to 
seek  shelter  in  an  infallible  church. 

Because  I  believe  that  the  history  of  theology  is  of 
the  most  absorbing  interest  as  well  as  of  the  highest 
importance,  that  it  concerns  those  called  the  laity  as 
weU  as  the  clergy,  I  have  sought  to  divest  the  sub- 
ject, as  far  as  I  could,  from  the  unnecessary  techni- 
calities of  theological  language,  whose  use  often  serves 
only  to  conceal  thought  or  to  deaden  its  activity.  I 
wish  that  I  might  have  devoted  more  attention  to  the 
course  of  philosophical  speculation  in  its  relations  to 
theology.     But  while  the  connection  is  a  close  and 


X  PREFACE, 

important  one,  it  also  involves  issues  whicli  have  not 
been  yet  determined.  I  have  therefore  alluded  to 
philosophy  when  its  connection  with  Christian  thought 
could  not  be  avoided,  and  for  the  rest  have  passed 
it  reluctantly  by.     ^ 

I  have  not  felt  it  necessary  to  fortify  every  state- 
ment by  the  quotation  of  authorities  in  foot-notes,  or 
even  by  references  to  them,  since,  for  the  most  part, 
I  have  been  traveling  over  ground  which  has  been 
rendered  familiar  to  the  students  of  theology  by  the 
labors  of  many  eminent  historical  scholars.  In  those 
cases  where  I  have  done  so,  it  has  been  in  order  to 
assist  the  general  reader,  who  may  not  be  acquainted 
with  theological  literature.  Much  has  passed  from 
the  minds  of  others  into  my  own  thought  which  it 
would  be  no  longer  possible  to  trace.  Those  who 
are  acquainted  with  the  work  of  a  teacher  will  know 
how  easy  it  is  to  appropriate  and  use  ideas  till,  by 
force  of  repetition,  they  become  inseparable  from 
one's  own.  In  this  way  I  "have  used  Neander  and 
Baur,  Maurice  and  Dorner,  till  it  has  almost  seemed 
imnecessary  to  render  them  the  tribute  of  indebted- 
ness. To  my  colleague.  Professor  Steenstra,  I  wish  to 
acknowledge  my  obligation  for  criticisms  and  sugges- 
tions while  the  work  has  been  going  through  the 
press ;  but  he  is  not  in  any  way  responsible  for  the 
opinions  it  expresses. 

Cambridge,  August  24, 1884. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


THE  GREEK  TETEOLOGY. 

The  secrecy  which  attends  the  transition  from  the  age  of  the  apostles  to 
the  age  of  the  early  Christian  fathers.  —  Suggestiveness  of  the  fragments 
of  the  post-apostolic  age  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  later  history.  — 
Clement  of  Rome,  the  Pastor  of  Hermas,  Papias,  the  "  Epistle  to  Diogne- 
tus,"  the  recently  discovered  "Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles."  —  Ig- 
natius. —  The  Epistle  to  Diognetus  serves  as  an  introduction  to  Greek  the- 
ology.—  Tlie  Christian  principle  according  to  the  mind  of  its  unknown 
author.  —  The  evidence  of  the  incarnation.  —  Revelation  as  commending 
itself  to  the  spiritual  consciousness  of  man.  —  Importance  assigned  to 
knowledge.  — The  nature  of  Christian  worship.  —  Ridicule  of  Jewish  super- 
stitions and  usages.  —  Idea  of  the  catholicity  of  the  church.  —  The  church 
emerges  into  the  clear  light  of  history  by  the  time  of  Justin  (A.  D.  166). — 
In  the  account  of  his  conversion  we  have  a  picture  of  the  world  in  his  age. 
—  Phases  of  his  intellectual  career.  —  His  residence  in  Rome  and  its  in- 
fluence upon  his  thought.  —  How  he  differed  from  other  teachers  of  Chris- 
tianity in  the  Latin  Church  by  the  importance  he  attached  to  philosophy.  — 
In  this  respect  he  represents  the  first,  great  intellectual  issue  that  divided 
the  ancient  church.  —  He  maintains  the  continuity  between  the  higher 
forms  of  paganism  and  Christianity.  — Christ  the  divine  reason  which  is 
universally  diffused.  —  Influence  of  the  Stoic  philosophy  traced  in  his  con- 
ception of  Christ.  —  But  he  was  also  influenced  by  Platonism.  —  Explana- 
tion of  the  return  to  Plato  in  the  second  century.  —  Traces  in  Justin  of 
the  conflict  of  thought  which  finally  ripened  into  the  trinitarian  contro- 
versy. —  His  opinions  on  other  points  betray  a  legal  tendency  of  Latin  or 
Jewish  origin.  —  Christian  theology  the  fruit  of  the  Greek  genius.  —  Its 
birth  in  Alexandria.  —  Intellectual  freedom  of  the  age.  —  Resemblance  of 
the  second  centurj'  to  the  nineteenth. —  Confusion  of  thought  and  the 
search  after  a  principle  of  unity.  —  The  complexity  of  the  problem  which 
Greek  theology  was  called  upon  to  solve.  —  Value  to  it  of  its  close  contact 
with  heathen  thought.  —The  heresies  arose  in  Alexandria,  but  it  was  there 
also  that  they  were  met.  —  Greek  theology  resisted  successfully  the  orien- 
tal tendency.  —  Clement  of  Alexandria. —What  is  known  of  his  life. — 
He  vindicated  the  alliance  between  Greek  philosophy  and  Christianity.  — 
Tendency  in  the  age  to  divorce  God  from  the  world.  —  The  cause  which 


Xll  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 

underlay  this  tendency. — Affinities  between  Plato's  thought  and  Bud- 
dhism. —  The  course  of  Greek  philosophy  after  Plato.  —  Influence  of  Sto- 
icism. —  Why  it  failed  to  satisfy.  —  Clement  is  mainly  concerned  in  en- 
forcing the  immanence  of  God.  —  He  does  not  indulge  in  speculations 
about  the  mode  of  the  divine  existence.  —  Christ  is  God  indwelling  in  the 
world.  — Evidence  of  the  connection  between  the  man  Jesus  and  the  Deity 
incarnate  in  Him.  —  Organic  relation  of  the  incarnation  to  the  course  of 
human  history.  —  Revelation  takes  place  through  the  reason.  —  The  image 
of  God  in  man,  the  fundamental  point  in  Clement's  anthropology.  —  He 
knows  nothing  of  the  doctrine  of  the  fall  of  man  in  Adam.  —  Ignorance 
the  source  of  sin.  —  Revelation  as  light,  the  remedy  of  sin.  —  The  educa- 
tion of  the  human  race  under  the  tuition  of  indwelling  Deity.  —  What  the 
idea  of  such  an  education  implies  as  to  the  nature  of  man.  —  The  function 
of  fear  in  religion.  —  The  methods  of  the  Divine  Instructor.  —  The  nature 
of  the  judgment.  —  The  object  of  punishment.  —  How  Clement  met  the 
heresies  of  the  age.  —  Marcion,  the  Ebionites,  other  forms  of  Gnosticism, 
the  oriental  principle.  —  The  doctrine  of  sacrificial  expiation  for  sin  finds 
no  place  in  his  system.  —  The  nature  of  redemption.  — The  incarnation  in 
itself  the  true  atonement  with  God.  —  The  nature  of  faith.  —  Its  relation 
to  reason.  —  Clement's  use  of  Scripture.  —  Idea  of  inspiration. — Relation 
toward  the  principle  of  heresy  in  general.  —  Definition  of  the  church.  — 
The  sacraments  and  rites  of  Avorship.  —  The  nature  of  sacrifice.  —  Oppo- 
sition to  asceticism.  —  The  principle  on  which  it  was  resisted.  —  The  future 
life  and  the  "last  things." — The  ideas  of  a  second  personal  coming  of 
Christ  in  the  flesh  and  the  millennium  irrational.  —  Rejection  of  the  material 
notions  about  the  resurrection.  —  Life  in  the  future  world  a  progressive  de- 
velopment. —  The  love  of  God  must  eventually  vindicate  its  power  in  a 
universal  triumph  over  sin. — Why  the  theology  of  Clement  has  been  pre- 
sented at  length.  —  His  relation  to  those  that  came  after  him.  — His  influ- 
ence upon  his  age.  —  His  name  stricken  from  the  calendar  of  Saints  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  church  about  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.  ^» 

—  Clement  succeeded  by  Origen.  —  Why  he  should  have  been  identified  ^ 
more  prominently  than  Clement  with  Greek  theology.  —  His  divergence 
from  Clement.  —  Influence  upon  him  of  Neo-Platonism.  —  His  primary  aim 

as  a  Christian  philosopher.  —  Significance  of  his  doctrine  of  the  "Eternal 
Generation  of  the  Son."  —  How  his  thought  needed  to  be  supplemented. 

—  Divergent  directions  of  thought  after  his  death. —  Athanasius.  —  Esti- 
mate of  his  greatness.  —  His  Greek  culture.  — His  treatises  "Against  the 
Greeks,"  and  "The  Incarnation  of  the  Word." — Method  of  argument 
against  polytheism.  —  The  divine  immanence  makes  a  multiplicity  of 
lower  gods  unnecessary.  —  God  indwells  in  the  world  through  the  Logos. 

—  God  to  be  known  by  looking  within  the  soul.  —  Revelation  a  disclosure 
of  man's  true  nature.  —  Freedom  of  the  will  an  inalienable  heritage.  —  Sol- 
idarit}'  of  the  hujnan  race  in  Christ.  —  Defense  of  the  incarnation  on  the 
principles  of   Stoic  philosophy.  —  Identification  of   the  historical  Christ 

"with  the  "Word  made  flesh."  — The  church's  life  the  best  evidence  of 
the  resurrection  of  Christ. — Appearance  of  Arius.  —  His  precursors. — 
His  training  at  Antioch,  where  the  tendency  was  to  separate  the  human 
from  the  divine.  —  Impossibility  of  the  incarnation  from  such  a  point  of 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xiii 

view.  —  The  times  favorable  to  Arius.  —  His  conception  of  God  as  tran- 
scendent Deity  apart  from  the  world.  —  His  idea  of  Christ  and  of  the 
nature  of  revelation.  —  The  gulf  between  God  and  the  world. — Arianism 
a  reversion  to  Jewish  deism. — Inferiority  to  Mohammedanism. — Ex- 
citement attending  the  teaching  of  Arius.  —  Athanasius'  defense  of  the 
incarnation  and  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  trinity.  —  Reason  for  the 
hesitation  of  the  church  in  accepting  it.  —  The  doctrine  of  the  trinity 
the  fulfillment  of  what  was  true  in  Greek  philosophy.  —  The  doctrine  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  in  Greek  theology Pages  23-94 

n. 

THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

The  relationship  between  Christian  and  Pagan  Rome.  —  The  revival 
of  Roman  heathenism.  —  The  Roman  genius  for  government  and  law  mani- 
fested its  influence  in  the  conception  of  the  church. —  First  sketches  of 
ecclesiastical  polity.  —  The  Clementine  Recognitions.  —  The  ideal  of  Igna- 
tius. —  The  Roman  Christians  see  no  incongruity  in  having  a  head  for  the 
church  at  large.  —  The  Latin  church  and  not  the  Greek  cultivated  the 
study  of  ecclesiastical  government.  —  The  character  of  this  development 
inferred  from  the  Montanist  reaction.  —  Relation  of  the  ]\Iontanist  doc- 
trine of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  ecclesiastical  ambition  of  Roman  Chris- 
tians.—  Cyprian,  about  the  middle  of  the  third  centurv,  first  enunci- Li^''^'^ 
ates  the  theory  of  "Apostolical  Succession."  —  Criticism  of  the  theory. 
—  The  motives  which  inspired  the  growth  of  the  Latin  church. —  Resist- 
ance to  heresy.  —  Gnosticism  the  typical  heresy.  —  The  "Apostles'  Creed  " 
a  protest  against  Gnosticism.  —  Why  the  Greeks  were  not  alarmed  by  ^^^ 
heresy  as  were  the  Latins.  — Irenaeua  asserts  the  tradition  of  the  Roman  ^""''^ 
church  as  the  best  safeguard  against  heresy. — The  same  line  of  reason- 
ing adopted  by  Tertullian  in  his  "Prescription  of  Heretics." — Bishops 
the  guardians  of  the  faith.  —  Salvation  interpreted  by  the  Latin  church  as 
escape  from  endless  punishment.  —  How  Tertullian  presented  this  motive  to 
the  heathens.  — Cyprian's  "Address  to  Demetrian."  —  First  emphatic  an-  U. 
nouncement  by  him  of  this  life  as  the  only  probation.  —  Superstitious 
elements  creeping  into  the  cultus  of  the  church.  —  The  relation  of  the  con- 
troversies about  the  baptism  of  heretics,  and  the  restoration  of  apostates, 
to  the  Latin  idea  of  the  church.  —  Influence  of  Constantine's  policy  upon 
the  church  as  an  institution.  —  "Why  the  Latins  upheld  so  strenuously  the  ^^ 
doctrinal  decision  of  Nicaea.  —  Rapid  growth  of  the  church  in  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries  not  accompanied  by  a  corresponding  moral  improve- 
ment.—  Relation  of  this  fact  to  Christian  theology.  —  The  decline  of  the 
old  civilization  as  affecting  intellectual  activity.  —  Rise  of  a  new  school  in 
theology  at  Antioch.  —  Significance  of  the  long  controversy  about  the  re- 
lations of  the  human  and  divine  natures  in  Christ.  —  Decisions  of  general 
councils.  —  The  historical  and  the  spiritual  Christ.  — How  the  sentiment  of 
the  church  decided  the  great  issue,  and  its  bearings  upon  later  history.  — 
The  conversion  of  Augustine.  —  His  early  life,  in  its  connection  with  this 
event.  —  He  submits  his  reason  to  external  authority.  —  His  earlier  the- 


XIV  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 

ology  reveals  the  influence  of  Greek  thought.  —  The  transition  to  Latin 
Christianity.  —  Tlie  authority  of  the  church  to  teach  the  world  asserted 
against  the  Manichaeans.  —  The  authority  of  the  church  to  rule.the  world 
.^^  maintained  against  the  Donatists.  —  The  inner  dogmatic  principle  which 
^justifies  the  church's  existence  and  its  necessity  to  human  salvation  main- 
■"jtained  against  Pelagius.  —  The  doctrine  of  original  sin  in  its  ecclesiastical 
bearings., — Its  effect  upon  the  view  of  baptism.  —  Opposition  to  Augus- 
tine from  the  East,  from  Rome,  and  b}^  Vincent  of  Lerins.  —  Augustine's 
doctrine  of  "grace,"  a  substitute  for  the  personal  Christ.  —  The  doc- 
trine of  endless  punishment  in  the  writings  of  Augustine,  for  the  first  time  / 
dogmatically  affirmed.  —  The  idea  of  purgatory  a  necessary  inference 
from  Augustine's  attitude.  —  Its  relation  to  the  belief  in  an  intermediate 
state.  —  The  influence  of  Augustine  upon  the  church  of  his  own  and 
later  ages.  —  Why  the  Latin  church  was  able  to  resist  Mohammedan- 
ism     Pages  97-172 

in. 

THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

Summary  of  the  differences  between  the  Greek  and  Latin  theologies. 

—  They  stand  to  each  other  in  the  relation  of  the  higher  to  the  lower.  — 
Later  history  of  Greek  theology.  —  The  pseudo-Dionj^sius.  —  Position  of 
the  Greek  church  in  the  present  day.  —  Its  possible  future.  —  Mission  of 
the  Latin  church  to  the  new  races.  —  Increasing  reverence  for  the  Bishop 
of  Rome.  —  Gregory  the  Great.  —  The  papacy  not  a  usurpation.  — Further 
development  of  the  Latin  idea  of  the  church.  —  Characteristics  of  the 
early  Middle  Ages.  —  Analogy  to  Judaism.  —  Traces  of  Greek  influence 
among  the  Irish-Scotch  clergy,  and  in  John  Scotus  Erigena.  — Theological 
controversies  in  the  ninth  century.  — Why  the  Latins  preferred  the  Jilioque. 

—  Relation  of  the  adoptionist  controversy  to  the  humanity  of  Christ. — 
Discussion  of  transubstantiation.  —  Modification  of  the  Augustinian  doc- 
trine of  election.  —  The  Gottschalk  controversy  shows  that  the  decrees  of 
the  church  have  been  substituted  for  the  decrees  of  God.  —  The  change 
which  came  over  the  church  and  the  age  in  consequence  of  the  calamities 
of  the  ninth  century.  —  How  it  affected  the  relation  of  the  people  to  the 
church.  —  The  cathedral  as  an  expression  of  mediaeval  religion.  —  Anselra. 

—  Statement  of  his  doctrine  of  atonement.  — Why  it  represents  an  ad- 
vance in  theological  thought. —  The  notion  of  a  ransom  paid  to  Satan  is  su- 
perseded by  it.  — Meaning  of  the  clause  in  the  Creed,  "  He  descended  into 
hell." — Anselm's  idea  of  atonement  reflects  the  local  influences  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  as  well  as  the  legal  attitude  of  the  Latin  mind.  —  It  falls  short  of 
the  full  teaching  of  Christ.  —  Its  connection  with  the  doctrine  of  indul- 
gences. —  The  object  of  Scholasticism  to  show  that  the  traditional  dogmas 
of  the  Latin  church  were  in  harmony  with  the  reason.  —  Why  such  an 
effort  could  not  be  successful.  —  The  fact  that  the  church  was  not  meeting 
the  demands  of  the  people  in  the  twelfth  century  showed  the  deficiency  in 
its  theology.  —  Common  characteristics  of  the  heretical  movements.  —  Ex- 
planation of  the  intellectual  freedom  of  the  twelfth  century.  —  The  revolt 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS.  XV 

of  Abelard  against  Latin  theology.  —  Comparison  with  Anselm.  —  Anomaly 
of  the  intellectual  situation.  —  The  significance  of  his  worli.  —  Signs  of  the 
approaching  ecclesiastical  reaction.  —  Condemnation  of  Abelard.  —  The 
church  endeavors  to  subjugate  the  reason.  —  The  means  adopted  for  this 
end.  —  Value  to  the  church  of  Peter  the  Lombard's  "  Book  of  Sentences." 

—  The  worlt  of  Thomas  Aquinas  in  reconciling  reason  with  the  dogmas  of 
the  Latin  church.  —  Transition  in  Scholasticism  from  Plato  to  Aristotle.  — 
Reasons  why  Platonism  had  fallen  into  discredit  with  the  School-men.  — 
Comparison  between  Plato  and  Aristotle.  —  The  latter  interpreted  as  stand- 
ing for  conservatism.  —  Under  the  influence  of  Aquinas  he  became  the 
standard  for  the  reason.  —  Dangers  from  the  devotion  to  Aristotle.  —  It 
predisposed  to  the  stud}'  of  nature. — How  nature  had  been  regarded  in 
the  history  of  Latin  thought.  —  Unconscious  purpose  which  in  this  respect 
the  Latin  church  had  served.  —  Relation  of  the  study  of  nature  to  ascet- 
icism. —  Rise  of  the  Mendicant  orders  coincides  with  the  adoption  of  Aris- 
totle. — iB^eology  of  Aquinas.  —  Distinction  between  the  kingdoms  of 
nature  and  grace,  and  its  application. -4<^.quinas  first  distinguishes  be- 
tween natural  and  revealed  religion.  —  He  does  not  change  the  basis  of 
Latin  theology,  but  represents  the  church  in  the  fullness  of  its  splendor. — 
Criticism  of  Duns  Scotus  upon  Aquinas.  — He  limits  still  further  the  range 
of  the  reason,  but  asserts  the  importance  of  the  will.  —  Contradictions  in 
his  thought.  —  His  work  tends  to  magnify  the  importance  of  the  church.  — 
How  Aquinas  and  Duns  Scotus  differ  in  their  ideas  regarding  God.  —  The 
distinction  a  fundamental  one  and  closely  connected  with  the  experience  of 
life.  — Dims  Scotus  more  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  Latin  Christianity. 

—  "Why  the  Jesuits  have  preferred  Duns  Scotus.  —  Significance  of  the 
modern  attempt  to  revive  the  study  of  Aquinas    ....    Pages  175-237 

nr. 

THEOLOGY  IN  THE  AGE  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

Latin  theology  begins  to  decline  after  the  thirteenth  century.  —  Monas- 
ticism  loses  its  vigor.  —  Scholasticism  becomes  skeptical.  —  The  work  of 
the  papacy  for  Christendom  had  been  accomplished.  —  Review  of  the 
mediaeval  cultus  in  its  positive  aspects  as  contributing  to  the  progress  of 
humanity.  — Relic  and  saint  worship.  —  Ecclesiastical  art.  — Beneficial  in- 
fluences of  the  papacy. — Monasticism  represented  the  principle  of  indi- 
vidualism. —  Value  of  nominalism  in  philosophy.  —  The  growth  of  the 
national  spirit  and  not  Luther,  the  power  that  dismembered  Christendom. 
• — Development  of  the  vernacular. — What  the  evangelical  reformers  and 
the  mystics  held  in  common.  —  The  rise  of  preaching  as  a  means  of  re- 
ligious culture.  —  Rejection  of  the  principle  of  church  authority.  —  The 
Bible  as  the  charter  of  the  church.  —  Wycliffe's  translation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures.—  Revelation  as  contained  in  the  Bible.  —  Historical  source  of  mys- 
ticism.—  Relation  of  the  pseudo-Dionysius  to  Latin  Christianity. — How 
the  aim  of  Latin  Christianity  subordinated  the  mystic  principle.  —  French 
mysticism  in  the  twelfth  century.  —  Superiority  of  the  German  mysticism 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  —  Eckart  and  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  im- 


XVI  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 

manence.  —  Comparison  of  mysticism  with  the  aim  of  the  evangelical  re- 
formers. —  German  mysticism  had  a  practical  spirit.  —  Why  it  could  not 
accomplish  a  reform.  —  Point  at  which  Luther  diverged  from  it.  —  The 
issue  which  the  evangelical  reformers  had  made  clear  to  the  world  before 
Luther  appeared.  —  Luther  declares  the  supremacy  of  the  conscience.  — 
The  Reformation  no  break  in  history.  —  Its  object  not  merely  to  correct 
abuses.  —  The  principle  from  which  abuses  sprang.  —  Luther's  "  Address 
to  the  German  Nobility  "  the  answer  to  Tertullian,  Irenaeus,  Cyprian,  and 
Augustine.  —  The  church  not  identical  with  the  hierarchy.  —  No  difference 
in  principle  between  priest  and  layman,  or  between  religious  and  secular 
things.  — Meaning  of  private  judgment.  —  The  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith.  —  Process  involved  in  Luther's  conversion.  — Change  in  his  concep- 
tion of  God. — The  assurance  of  faith.  —  Criticism  of  the  phrase  "justi- 
fication by  faith."  —Why  the  reformers  would  not  add  the  word  "  works  " 
to  faith.  — Luther  not  a  scientific  theologian.  — His  opinions  on  other  sub- 
jects. —  Melancthon's  desire  to  regain  the  episcopate.  —  Confession  and  ab- 
solution. —  Specimens  of  Luther's  biblical  criticisms.  —  Higher  significance 
of  the  denial  of  human  liberty  by  the  reformers.  —  Difference  between 
Luther  and  Zwingle.  —  God,  with  Zwingle,  the  indwelling  life  of  the 
universe.  — His  view  of  the  miraculous.  —  In  what  sense  the  Bible  is  the 
word  of  God.  —  Revelation  in  the  heathen  world.  —  Denial  of  the  doctrine 
of  original  sin.  —  Salvability  of  the  heathen.  —  Discussion  with  Luther  on 
the  eucharist.  —  The  larger  truth  implied  in  Zwingle's  denial  of  a  special 
presence  of  Christ  in  the  Lord's  Supper.  —  His  views  of  church  and  state. 

—  His  system  not  understood  in  his  own  age.  —  The  French  nationality  of 
Calvin.  — Change  in  the  situation  when  he  began  his  work.  —  Melancthon 
represents  the  desire  for  compromise.  —  Increasing  confusion  and  disorder. 

—  Calvin  represents  the  demand  for  order  and  discipline.  —  His  conception 
of  the  church  in  some  of  its  aspects  not  essentially  different  from  the 
Latin.  —  His  view  of  the  Bible  and  of  revelation.  —  He  rejects  the  idea  of 
the  divine  immanence. — Doctrine  of  the  fall  and  election.  — Modification 
of  Anselm's  theory  of  atonement.  —  The  present  humiliation  of  Christ  and 
His  future  glory.  —  Calvin's  theology,  an  emphatic  reassertion  of  the 
principles  of  Latin  Christianity.  —  His  idea  of  God  as  absolute  and 
arbitrary  will.  —  Separation  between  God  and  humanity.  —  Points  in 
which  his  system  differs  from  Latin  theology.  —  The  spirit  of  modern 
skepticism  lurked  beneath  his  assumptions Pages  241-304 

V. 

CONFLICT  OP   THE  TRADITIONAL  THEOLOGY  WITH  RATIONALISM. 

Characteristics  of  the  theology  generally  received  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  —  Its  better  aspects  as  seen  in  Milton's  "Paradise  Lost,"  Bun- 
yan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  the  career  of  Cromwell. — |J^latent  skepticism 
revealed  in  Pascal.  —  Contrast  of  Pascal  with  George  Herbert.  —  The  life 
of  the  world  apart  from  the  church.  —  Roman  church  as  compared  with 
Protestantism.  —  Reappearance  of  mysticism,  Arndt,  Bohme,  the  Quietists, 
the  Quakers,  Molinos,  the  Pietists.  —  The  struggle  for  civil  and  religious 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS.  xvii 

freedom. — Organizations  of  the  Protestant  churches.  —  The  Reformation 
in  the  Church  of  England  essentially  a  lay  movement.  —  Retention  in  the 
English  church  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  order.  —  Theory  of  the  church 
which  underlay  the  English  Reformation.  —  Theology  of  the  Church  of 
England. — Character  and  influence  of  the  Liturgy. — How  the  ecclesias- 
tical order  was  essentially  changed  by  the  emancipation  of  the  presbyter 
from  unqualified  subjection  to  the  bishop.  — Remark  of  Bishop  Hampden. 

—  Rise  of  Puritanism.  —  Significance  of  the  controversy  about  church 
authority.  —  Original  attitude  of  the  Church  of  England  against  the  Puri- 
tans!—  Its  change  of  attitude  in  the  seventeenth  century.  —  Revival  of 
Latin  theology  under  Archbishop  Laud.  —  How  it  may  be  interpreted.  — 
Independents,  Baptists,  and  Quakers.  —  Relation  of  these  movements  to 
civil  and  religious  liberty.  — IWTportance  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  the 
history  of  Christian  thought. — Why  the  clew  to  the  history  is  apt  to  be 
lost  at  this  point.  — The  apparent  retrogression  in  theology  connected  with 
the  Catholic  reaction  led  by  the  Jesuits.  — Merit  of  Calvinism  in  resisting 
the  reaction.  —  The  authority  of  Scripture  as  the  bulwark  against  Rome. 

—  The  Protestant  position  a  strong  one.  —  Preparation  for  the  deistic 
movement.  —  Why  the  authority  of  reason  was  substituted  for  that  of 
Scripture.  —  The  Cambridge  school  of  Platonists.  —  Significance  of  the 
importance  attached  to  nature  in  the  last  centurj'-.  — JHMory  of  the  tran- 
sition from  the  study  of  revealed  theology  to  natural  theology.  —  Meaning 
of  the  love  for  the  miraculous.  —  Hindrance  to  the  study  of  nature.  —  How 
nature  was  regarded  by  the  mystics. — Influence  of  scientific  discoveries 
upon  the  idea  of  God.  —  Definition  of  the  religion  of  nature.  —  Disposition 
to  subordinate  to  it  revealed  religion.  —  Toland  opens  the  deistic  contro- 
versy. —  How  the  apologists  thought  natural  religion  needed  to  be  sup- 
plemented.—  Reply  of  Tindal  in  "Christianity  as  Old  as  the  Creation."  — 
Objections  to  natural  religions,  optimism,  and  pessimism.  —  Weakness  of 
deism  as  a  proposed  substitute  for  Christianity.  —  The  apologists  main- 
tained that  revelation  is  evidenced  by  miracles.  —  This  position  attacked 
by  Collins,  Woolston,  and  Middleton.  —  The  larger  question  raised  as  to  the 
nature  of  historical  evidence.  —  How  the  deists  regarded  the  subject.  — 
Why  the  apologists  won  an  easy  victory.  —  Influence  of  deism  in  France 
and  America.  —  German  illuminism.  —  Vulgar  rationalism.  —  The  cause 
which  explains  the  prevailing  indifference  or  hostility  to  theology.  —  The 
Latin  theolog}'  succumbed  to  the  opposition  of  the  reason  ;  the  idea  of 
Grod,  the  trinity,  the  atonement,  endless  punishment. — Criticism  of  the 
deistic  movement.  —  The  issue  which  it  bequeathed  to  the  nineteenth 
century Pages  307-369 

VI. 

RENAISSANCE  OP  THEOLOGY  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 

Principles  of  speculative  thought  anticipated  in  great  popular  move- 
ments. —  The  transition  from  the  last  century  to  our  own  age  traced  in  the 
evangelical  movement.  —  The  idea  of  conversion.  — Its  influence  upon 
modem  Christianity.  —  Social  or  chnrchly  character  of  the  evangelical 


xviil  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

movement.  —  The  principle  which  divided  Wesley  and  Whitefield,  and  its 
manifestation  in  practical  religious  experience.  —  Defect  of  the  evangel- 
ical movement.  —  Schleiermacher  the  regenerator  of  theology.  —  His  con- 
ception of  religion. — Antecedent  influences  that  moulded  his  thought; 
Moravianism,  Spinoza,  Greek  philosophy,  German  illuminism,  the  phi- 
losophy of  Schelling,  the  French  Revolution.  —  His  doctrine  of  the  divine 
immanence.  —  The  Person  of  Christ  in  the  experience  of  the  religious  life. 

—  Christ  the  manifestation  of  the  glory  of  God.  —  Modification  in  the  ideas 
of  election  and  probation.  —  Revival  of  the  truth  that  life  is  an  education. 

—  Definition  of  the  supernatural,  and  its  relation  to  the  natural.  —  The 
application  of  this  principle  to  Scripture.  —  Creates  the  modern  method  of 
Biblical  criticism.  —  Progress  in  the  historj'  of  revelation  as  seen  in  the  Old 
Testament.  —  Effect  of  this  principle  when  applied  to  the  New  Testament. 

—  The  religious  consciousness  and  the  Christian  consciousness.  —  Reve- 
lation in  the  history  of  the  church.  —  Importance  of  the  idea  of  the  church. 

—  The  extent  of  Schleiermacher' s  influence.  —  He  legitimates  mysticism 
in  the  church.  —  Mysticism  the  Latin  name  for  the  Greek  theology.  —  The 
negations  of  Schleiermacher  those  of  Greek  theologj'.  —  The  modification 
in  the  idea  of  God  as  seen  in  Goethe,  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  in 
modern  ai*t  and  modern  science.  —  The  ecclesiastical  reaction.  —  Inability 
to  apprehend  the  larger  idea  of  revelation.  —  Revival  of  a  belief  in  the 
church's  sanctity  as  distinct  from  the  state.— Distrust  of  the  democratic 
tendencies  of  the  French  Revolution.  —  John  Henry  Newman  leads  the 
reaction  in  England.  —  The  principles  which  he  avowed.  —  Return  to  the 
Latin  basis  in  theology.  —  Comparison  of  Pusey  with  Maurice.  —  The  idea 
of  the  spiritual  life  as  held  by  the  Tractarians.  —  The  theory  of  the  church. 

—  Their  misapprehension  of  historical  continuity.  —  The  working  of  their 
principles  modified  by  the  tendencies  of  the  age.  —  Weakness  of  the  Trac- 
tarian  movement.  —  The  principle  of  agnosticism  avowed  by  Mansel.  — 
The  ecclesiastical  reaction  has  not  succeeded  in  checking  the  activity  of 
the  reason.  —  Its  beneficial  effects.  —  Definition  of  a  reaction.  —  The  intel- 
lectual confusion  of  the  age. — Weakness  in  the  modern  attitude  toward 
theology.  —  The  deficiency  in  Schleiermacher.  —  Relation  of  the  feelings 
to  the  reason.  —  Comparison  of  Schleiermacher  with  Clement  of  Alexan- 
dria. —  In  what  respects  the  resemblance  consists  between  the  modern  age 
and  the  Nicene  period  of  the  ancient  church. — Relation  of  Origen  and 
Athanasius  to  Clement  of  Alexandria.  —  Hegel  the  successor  of  Schleier- 
macher. —  The  principle  for  which  he  stands.  —  Coleridge  and  Maurice 
agree  with  Hegel  in  this  respect,  and  not  with  Schleiermacher.  —  Signifi- 
cance of  the  attack  of  Strauss  upon  historical  Christianity.  —  Why  such  a 
tendency  as  he  represented  was  to  have  been  expected.  —  The  conditions 
of  the  problem  which  he  has  raised.  —  How  the  antagonism  is  to  be  recon- 
ciled. —  Conclusion     Pages  373-438 


CONTINUITY  OF  CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT. 


INTRODUCTION. 

The  traditional  conception  of  God  wliich  has  come 
down  to  us  from  the  Middle  Ages  through  the  Latin 
church  is  undergoing  a  profound  transformation. 
The  idea  that  God  is  transcendent,  not  only  exalted 
above  the  world  by  His  moral  perfection,  but  separated 
from  it  by  the  infinite  reaches  of  space,  is  yielding  to 
the  idea  of  Deity  as  immanent  in  His  creation.  A 
change  so  fundamental  involves  other  changes  of  mo- 
mentous importance  in  every  department  of  human 
thought,  and  more  especially  in  Christian  theology. 
The  epithets  applied  to  God,  such  as  absolute  and  in- 
finite, have  a  different  significance  when  applied  to 
Deity  indwelling  within  the  universe.  When  we  no 
longer  localize  Him  as  a  physical  essence  in  the  in- 
finite remoteness,  it  is  easier  to  regard  Him  as  eth- 
ical in  His  inmost  being ;  righteousness  becomes  more 
readily  the  primary  element  in  our  conception  of  His 
essential  nature.  There  is  no  theological  doctrine 
which  does  not  undergo  a  change  in  consequence  of 
the  change  in  our  thought  about  God.  Creation  and 
revelation,  the  relation  between  God  and  humanity, 
the  incarnation  and  the  things  which  concern  our 
final  destiny,  are  lifted  into  a  higher  sphere  and  re- 
ceive a  deeper,  a  more  comprehensive  and  more  spir- 
itual meaning. 


2  INTRODUCTION. 

The  object  of  the  following  treatise  is  to  present 
the  outlines  of  that  early  Christian  theology  which 
was  formulated  by  thinkers  in  whose  minds  the  divine 
immanence  was  the  underlying  thought  in  their  con- 
sciousness of  God.  The  Greek  fathers,  from  the  second 
to  the  fifth  centuries,  could  not  escape,  even  had  they 
been  inclined  to  do  so,  from  the  influence  of  a  philos- 
ophy like  the  Stoic,  so  entirely  in  accordance  with  the 
well-known  tendencies  of  Hellenic  life  and  culture,  and 
which  existed  for  five  hundred  years,  as  the  genuine 
expression  of  the  Greek  mind  before  it  was  overcome 
by  other  forms  of  theosophical  speculation.  Although 
from  the  second  century  a  retrogressive  movement 
toward  Platonism  was  gaining  strength,  as  seen  in 
Justin  and  more  especially  in  Origen,  yet  it  was  im- 
possible for  Christian  thinkers,  even  so  late  as  the 
age  of  Constantine,  to  emancipate  their  minds  from 
the  subtle  spell  of  that  philosophy  whose  distinguish- 
ing feature  was  the  belief  that  God  indwelt  in  the 
universe  and  in  the  life  of  man.  Such  an  influence  ^ 
was  as  inevitable  as  that  of  scholasticism  upon  the 
reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century,  or  of  Calvin  upon 
some  modern  thinkers,  who  congratulate  themselves  on 
having  abandoned  his  system  while  still  adhering  to 
what  was  fundamental  in  his  method.  But  the  Greek 
theologians  did  not  stand  in  an  attitude  of  revolt  or 
alienation  from  Hellenic  philosophy  and  culture.  They 
knew  its  value  in  their  own  experience,  and  held  it  to 
be  a  divine  gift  to  the  Greek  people,  —  a  divinely  or- 
dered course  of  preparation  for  the  "  fullness  of  time." 
From  the  alliance  of  Greek  philosophy  with  Christian 
thought  arose  the  Greek  theology,  whose  characteris- 
tics are  a  genuine  catholicity,  spiritual  depth  and  free- 
dom, a  marked  rationality,  and  a  lofty  ethical  tone  by 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

which  it  is  pervaded  throughout.  For  a  time  its  in- 
fluence was  felt  and  acknowledged  in  the  West,  as  is 
seen  in  the  writings  of  Irenaeus,  Hippolytus,  Minucius  / 
Felix,  and  to  a  limited  extent  even  in  Tertullian.  But 
the  East  and  West  began  to  grow  apart  after  the  time 
of  Constantine,  and  the  first  foundations  of  the  later 
schism  between  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches  were 
already  laid,  when  there  arose  in  the  West,  under  the 
influence  of  Augustine,  a  peculiar  theology  with  which 
the  Greek  mind  could  have  no  sympathy,  whose  fun- 
damental tenets  it  regarded  with  aversion. 

The  Augustinian  theology  rests  upon  the  transcend- 
ence of  Deity  as  its  controlling  principle,  and  at  every 
point  appears  as  an  inferior  rendering  of  the  earlier  in- 
terpretation of  the  Christian  faith.  Augustine  is  the 
most  illustrious  representative  in  history  of  a  process 
very  familiar  to  our  own  age,  by  which  men  of  con- 
siderable intellectual  activity,  wearied  with  the  ques- 
tionings and  skepticisms  which  they  cannot  resolve, 
faU  back  upon  external  authority  as  the  only  mode  of  ^ 
silencing  the  reason  and  satisfying  the  conscience. 
Like  the  modern  Brownson,  he  had  swung  round 
the  circle  of  theories  and  systems  in  which  his  age 
abounded,  without  finding  relief  ;  like  Mallock,  he 
was  painfully  impressed  with  the  moral  skepticism 
concealed  beneath  the  superficial  appearance  of  or- 
dinary life  ;  and,  like  Newman,  he  possessed  an  unri-  j/ 
valed  skill  in  dialectic,  which  he  employed  in  defense 
of  the  system  which  he  had  chosen  to  identify  with  the 
Christian  faith.  His  conversion  took  place  at  Milan, 
where  he  was  struck  by  the  external  power  and  splen- 
dor of  the  church  under  its  majestic  administration 
by  Ambrose  ;  he  received,  on  assent,  the  Christianity 
of  the  time,  and  included  in  it  the  pppular  notions  and 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

tendencies  which  were  current  in  the  church,  as  part 
of  the  divine  revelation.  After  he  became  Bishop  of 
Hippo,  and  especially  after  his  entanglement  in  the^ 
Donatist  and  Pelagian  controversies,  he  stood  forth  as 
the  type  of  the  ecclesiastic  in  all  later  ages :  like  New- 
man after  his  perversion,  there  was  nothing  so  obnox- 
ious or  irrational  that  he  could  not  make  it  plausible 
to  the  reason  ;  that  which  seemed  to  be  useful  or  desir- 
able for  maintaining  the  control  and  ascendency  of  K 
the  church  was  stamped  to  his  mind  with  the  signet  of 
the  truth.  The  needs  of  ecclesiastical  policy  became 
the  standard  by  which  to  test  the  validity  of  Christian 
belief. 

The  Augustinian  theology  made  possible  the  rise  of  \ 
the  papacy.^  Leo  the  Great,  in  the  generation  after 
Augustine,  put  forth  the  claim  for  the  authority  of  the 
Roman  see  which  was  never  afterward  relaxed,  and 
which  saw  its  realization  in  the  imperial  authority  over 
Christendom  of  Hildebrand  and  Innocent  III.  Au- 
gustinianism  and  the  papacy  owe  their  appearance  to 
an  age  when  free  inquiry  and  intellectual  activity  were 
struck  with  decline,  when  the  reign  of  barbarism  was 

^  How  the  work  of  Augustine  contributed  to  the  development 
of  the  papacy  is  clearly  shown  by  Geffcken,  Staat  und  Kirche, 
in  ihrem  Verhdltniss  geschichtlich  entwickelt,  pp.  95-98.  The  "  City 
of  God "  is  a  prophetic  anticipation  of  the  church  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  In  GefEcken's  words  :  "  Er  stellt  Natur,  Individualitat, 
Familie,  Nationalifat,  Staat  als  etwas  verhaltnissmassig  Gleich- 
gultiges  hin  und  ordnet  alles  der  sichtbaren,  allgemeinen  Kirche 
unter  ausserhalb  deren  es  kein  Heil  giebt,  er  stellt  die  Autoritat 
ihrer  Tradition  neben  die  der  Schrift,  behauptet  den  sacramen- 
talen  Character  der  Ordination  und  des  Priesterstandes.  Und 
wenn  er  die  Vertretung  der  Kirche  noch  in  die  Aristokratie  der 
Bischofe  setzt,  so  war  es,  nachdem  einmal  ein  gesonderter  Stand 
der  Leviten  hingestellt  war,  nur  ein  Schritt,  diesen  audi  einen  Ho- 
hepriester  als  einheitlichen  Mittelpunkt  der  Kirche  zu  gebeu." 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

about  to  begin.  Under  such  circumstances  we  may  see 
in  both  alike  a  providential  adaptation  of  Christian- 
ity to  a  lower  environment.  They  did  not  grow  out 
of  the  Christian  idea  as  its  necessary  development,  but 
were  rather  retrograde  forms  under  which  the  Chris- 
tian principle  might  still  be  operative,  though  in 
greatly  diminished  degree.  One  need  not  speak  of 
the  papacy  as  a  usurpation :  it  was  a  dispensation  di- 
vinely appointed  for  the  races  of  Europe;  a  school- 
master, like  the  Jewish  theocracy  which  it  so  closely 
resembled,  to  bring  them  to  Christ.  But  the  same  di- 
vine hand  which  is  revealed  in  its  rise  and  its  f ortimes 
is  revealed  also  in  the  process  which  led  to  its  over- 
throw and  rejection.  The  Augustinian  theology  had 
subserved  a  temporary  purpose,  and  began  to  wane 
with  the  papacy  when  the  human  mind  once  more  re- ' 
gained  its  freedom.  So  far  as  both  yet  linger  in  the 
modern  world,  it  is  an  evidence  that  there  are  those 
who  still  need,  or  think  they  need,  a  religion  based 
upon  external  authority,  or  a  morality  whose  sanction 
is  fear  of  the  consequences  of  sin  in  the  future  world. 
The  motive  which  lends  interest  and  value  to  a  study 
of  the  history  of  Latin  theology  in  the  Middle  Ages,  or 
in  its  later  Protestant  modifications,  is  to  seek  in  its 
varied  fortunes  for  that  tendency  to  revert  again  to  the 
true  interpretation  of  the  Christian  faith,  from  which 
it  was  originally  a  falling  away.  The  transitions  of 
modem  thought  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  God  and 
His  relation  to  the  world  are  in  nowise  abrupt  or  sud- 
den, or  the  result  of  a  preparation  to  be  found  exclu- 
sively in  our  own  time.  It  is  of  the  highest  impor- 
tance to  show,  if  it  can  be  shown,  that  the  preparation 
for  the  higher  and  fuller  truth  may  be  traced  in  the 
progress  of  thought  during  the  Middle  Ages  as  well  aa 


6  INTRODUCTION. 

in  the  later  Protestantism.  For  all  our  thought  con- 
cerning God  has  its  foundation  in  the  consciousness  of 
man,  —  or  rather,  it  is  in  and  through  the  conscious- 
ness that  the  divine  revelation  is  made,  —  and  there- 
fore, among  those  in  every  age  who  have  set  themselves 
seriously  to  find  out  God,  we  should  expect  some  testi- 
mony, however  feeble  or  overborne  by  contradictions, 
to  the  later  and  fuller  utterance  of  the  consciousness 
as  it  speaks  in  ourselves.  There  is  scarcely  a  thinker 
in  the  whole  range  of  Latin  or  Protestant  theology 
who  has  not  at  moments  given  expression  to  a  higher 
thought  of  Deity  than  that  which  underlies  the  formal 
theology,  the  ecclesiastical  institutions,  or  the  current 
modes  of  belief  which  command  his  adherence  and  ap- 
proval. It  is  Augustine  who,  at  a  certain  stage  in  his 
career,  could  write :  — 

"  For  God  is  diffused  through  all  things.  He  saith  Him- 
self by  the  Prophet,  '  I  fill  heaven  and  earth/  and  it  is  said 
unto  Him  in  a  certain  psalm,  *  Whither  shall  I  go  from  Thy 
Spirit,  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  Thy  presence  ?  If  I  as- 
cend up  to  heaven.  Thou  art  there  ;  if  I  make  my  bed  in  hell, 
behold  Thou  art  there ; '  because  God  is  substantially  dif- 
fused everywhere.  God  is  not  thus  diffused  through  all 
things  as  though  by  diffusion  of  mass,  so  as  to  be  half  in  one 
half  of  the  world's  body  and  half  in  the  other,  and  thus  en- 
tire in  the  whole  ;  but  entire  in  heaven  alone,  and  entire  in 
earth  alone,  and  entire  in  both  heaven  and  earth,  and  com- 
prehended in  no  place,  but  everywhere  entire  in  Himself.  He 
is  nowhere  and  everywhere." 

And  again,  speaking  of  the  incarnation,  it  is  Au- 
gustine who  says :  — 

"  And  though  He  is  everywhere  present  to  the  inner  eye 
when  it  is  sound  and  clear,  He  condescended  to  make  Him- 
self manifest  to  the  outw^ard  eye  of  those  whose  inward  sight 


INTRODUCTION,  7 

is  weak  and  dim.  Not  then  in  the  sense  of  traversing  space, 
hut  because  he  appeared  to  mortal  men  in  the  form  of  mor- 
tal fleshy  He  is  said  to  have  come  to  ws.  For  He  came  to  a 
place  where  He  had  always  been,  seeing  that  He  was  in  the 
world  and  the  world  was  made  by  Him."  ^ 

Even  Thomas  Aquinas,  when  the  exigencies  of  reason 
required  it,  could  write :  — 

"  There  have  been  some,  as  the  Manichees,  who  said  that 
spiritual  and  incorporeal  things  are  subject  to  divine  power, 
but  visible  and  corporeal  things  are  subject  to  the  power  of  a 
contrary  principle.  Against  these  we  must  say  that  God  is 
in  all  things  by  His  power.  There  have  been  others  again 
who,  though  they  believed  all  things  subject  to  divine  power, 
still  did  not  extend  divine  Providence  down  to  the  lower 
parts,  concerning  which  it  is  said  in  Job,  '  He  walketh  upon 
the  hinges  of  heaven  and  considereth  not  our  concerns.' 
And  against  these  it  is  necessary  to  say,  that  God  is  in  all 
things  by  His  presence.  There  have  been  again  others,  who, 
though  they  said  all  things  belonged  to  the  Providence  of 
God,  still  laid  it  down  that%ll  things  are  not  created  imme- 
diately by  God,  but  that  He  inunediately  created  the  first, 
and  these  created  others.  And  against  them  it  is  necessary 
to  say  that  He  is  in  all  things  by  His  essence."  ^ 

Passages  like  these  are  gleams  of  a  higher  thought, 
flashing  forth  at  exceptional  moments,  when  the  relig- 
ious heart  speaks  out  or  the  reason  forgets  its  tram- 
mels. But  the  formal  theology,  the  ecclesiastical  in- 
stitutions, which  Augustine  sanctioned  for  the  ages 
that  followed  him,  which  Calvin  renewed  for  the  Prot- 
estant churches,  are  built  upon  the  ruling  principle 
that  God  is  outside  the  world  and  not  within  ;    that 

1  De  Doc.  Christ,  i.  c.  13. 

^  Sum.  Theol.  Prima  Pars,  qu.  viii.  art.  3,  quoted  in  Hamp- 
den's Bampton  Lectures,  p.  184. 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

He  is  absolute  Deity  in  the  sense  that  His  being  would 
be  complete  without  the  creation  or  humanity  or  the 
Eternal  Son. 

What  is  sometimes  called  "  modern  infidelity  "  is 
mainly,  I  had  almost  said  exclusively,  a  protest  against 
the  theology  based  upon  such  a  conception  of  God.  It 
is  not  Christianity  in  itself  which  is  to-day  obnoxious 
to  serious  men,  but  a  Latinized  Christianity  which  the  I 
thought  of  the  world  has  outgrown  while  it  is  still 
perpetuated  in  the  formal  attitude  of  the  churches. 
The  traditional  doctrines  concerning  the  nature  and  / 
method  of  the  divine  revelation,  the  atonement,  and 
the  final  destiny  of  man,  are  called  in  question,  not 
because  they  are  irrational  in  themselves,  but  because  \ 
they  no  longer  spring  by  an  inward  necessity  from 
that  changed  conception  of  God  which  is  consciously 
or  unconsciously  postulated  by  the  mind.  We  often 
hear  of  a  Catholic  faith  which  is  an  older  reality  than 
any  of  the  theologies  which  command  the  popular  as- 
sent, but  those  who  profess  to  hold  it  are  too  apt  to 
identify  the  ancient  creeds  with  their  Latin  inter- 
pretation. It  is  not  till  we  get  back  into  an  earlier 
age,  before  Christianity  was  translated  into  its  Latin 
idioms,  that  we  can  discern  another  interpretation  of 
the  Christian  faith,  —  the  religion  of  Christ  as  it  ap- 
peared to  men  who  were  living  and  thinking  under 
intellectual  conditions  more  similar  to  our  own  than 
any  intervening  age  has  since  exhibited.  The  ancient 
Greek  theology,  as  it  was  developed  from  the  second 
to  the  fourth  century  under  the  hand  of  great  masters 
like  Clement  and  Athanasius,  differs  at  every  point 
from  Latin  theology  as  it  received  its  final  impress 
from  Augustine  in  the  fifth  century. 

I  have  attempted  in  the  following  pages  to  contrast 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

the  two  theologies,  and  to  trace  the  genesis  of  each  to 
its  ruling  principle.  In  so  doing,  I  am  not  presenting 
any  novel  view  of  the  history  of  Christian  thought. 
The  distinction  between  the  Greek  and  Latin  theolo- 
gies has  been  made  by  every  recent  writer  of  any  im- 
portance in  the  field  of  church  history,  among  whom 
may  be  mentioned,  as  best  known,  Gieseler,  Neander, 
Dorner,  Ritschl,  Baur,  Pressense,  Renan,  Bunsen, 
Maurice,  and  Milman.  Gieseler  attached  the  highest 
importance  to  Greek  theology,  and  saw  in  the  the- 
ology of  the  Latin  church,  as  it  originated  with  Ter- 
tullian,  a  debased  rendering  of  the  spiritual  truths  of 
Christianity.  The  distinction  also  runs  through  the 
great  work  of  Dorner  on  the  "  Person  of  Christ ;  "  it 
is  significant  that  he  finds  neither  in  Augustine  nor  in 
Thomas  Aquinas,  the  two  most  celebrated  theologians 
of  the  Latin  church,  an  adequate  conception  of  the 
incarnation.  Neander  appreciated  clearly  the  differ- 
ences between  the  two  theologies,  but  was  so  averse  to 
all  that  bore  upon  ecclesiastical  organization  that  he 
has  not  traced  the  western  theology  to  its  genuine  root ; 
nor  does  he  see  as  clearly  as  Dorner,  that  the  Augus- 
tinian  doctrines  of  sin  and  grace  implied  a  fundamen- 
tal departure  from  what  was  highest  and  most  real  in 
the  earlier  theology. 

Ritschl  has  devoted  an  elaborate  treatise  to  the 
"  Christian  Doctrine  of  Justification  and  Reconcilia- 
tion," and  begins  his  treatment  of  the  subject  with 
Anselm's  theory  of  the  atonement,  as  if  the  early 
church  had  been  utterly  silent  upon  so  momentous  a 
theme.  While  he  admits  that  Greek  theology  stands 
upon  a  different  niveau  from  Latin,  and  that  to  this 
cause,  and  not  to  political  complications  alone,  was 
owing    the    schism    between    the    Greek    and    Latin 


10  INTRODUCTION. 

churches,  he  gives  no  intimation  that  the  Greek  the* 
ologians  looked  at  redemption  and  reconciliation  from 
a  point  of  view  distinctly  their  own,  and  would  have 
been  as  averse  to  Anselm's  doctrine  of  atonement  as 
they  were  to  Augustine's  doctrine  of  original  sin.^  The 
value  of  Ritschl's  discussion  of  the  subject  lies  in  his 
exhibition  of  the  progress  of  thought  among  the  think- 
ers who  followed  Anselm,  till  they  approximate  the 
leading  principle  of  Greek  theology,  that  the  incarna- 
tion does  not  differ  from  the  atonement  as  the  means 
from  the  end,  but  that  in  the  incarnation  itself  is  man- 
ifested the  reconciliation  of  man  with  God,  and  the 
actual  redemption  of  humanity  from  its  lost  estate. 
But  this  conclusion  Ritschl  fails  to  draw.  The  mind 
of  Baur  was  so  preoccupied  with  the  antithesis  be- 
tween the  Petrine  and  Pauline  types  of  Christianity 
and  their  reconciliation  in  the  Catholic  church,  that 
he  has  failed  to  read  another  and  deeper  antithesis  in 
the  history  of  ancient  theology  for  whose  reconcilia- 
tion the  world  is  still  waiting.     It  is  because  he  sees 

^  The  late  Rev.  J.  M.  Neale,  in  the  preface  to  his  translation 
of  the  Eastern  Liturgies,  remarks  that  he  finds  no  trace  in  them 
of  the  modern  theory  of  the  atonement,  as  it  has  been  held  in 
the  Latin  or  Protestant  churches,  according  to  which  the  suffer- 
ings of  Christ  were  an  equivalent  for  human  punishment.  "  For 
nearly  twenty  years,"  he  says,  "  these  and  the  other  early  litur- 
gies have  been  my  daily  study  ;  there  are  very  few  passages  in 
them  which  I  could  not  repeat  by  heart ;  and  scarcely  any  im- 
portant works  on  the  subject  which  I  have  not  read.  I  may 
therefore  claim  some  little  right  to  be  heard  with  respect  to 
them.  And  I  say  most  unhesitatingly,  that  while  I  conceive 
that  some  passages  in  them  might  be  tortured  into  a  Calvinistic 
sense  were  sufficient  ingenuity  employed,  no  ingenuity  can  make 
any  single  clause  even  patient  of  the  theory  of  equivalence.  If 
that  theory  be  true,  the  eucharistic  teaching  of  every  eastern 
liturgy  is  absolutely  false." 


INTRODUCTION,  11 

in  the  Fourth  Gospel  only  a  product  of  Alexandrian 
thought  in  the  second  century,  and  not  an  original  in- 
dependent tradition  of  the  teaching  of  Christ,  of  equal 
antiquity  and  authority  with  the  tradition  given  in  the 
synoptical  gospels,  that  he  is  inclined  to  disparage  also 
the  work  of  the  earlier  Alexandrian  writers  like  Clem- 
ent and  Origen,  as  if  with  the  Fourth  Gospel  it  was 
but  a  variation  of  the  Gnostic  heresy.^  Apart  from 
this  defect,  no  one  has  thrown  a  keener  light  upon  the 
condition  of  religious  thought  in  the  ancient  church, 
or  seen  more  clearly  how  great  a  departure  from  prim- 
itive Christianity  was  involved  in  the  Augustinian 
dogma  of  original  sin.^ 

A  formidable  obstacle  to  the  intelligent  study  of 
the  Greek  theology  is  the  lingeriug  hold  of  Augustine 
upon  the  modem  mind.  The  tenets  of  the  Bishop  of 
Hippo  have  been  for  so  many  ages  identified  with 
divine  revelation,  that  it  requires  an  intellectual  revo- 
lution in  order  to  attain  the  freedom  to  interpret  cor- 
rectly, not  only  the  early  Fathers  of  the  church,  but 
Scripture  itself.  As  there  has  been  a  traditional  in- 
terpretation of  Scripture,  so  there  has  been  a  tradi- 
tional reading  of  the  theologians  before  Augustine's 

^  And  yet  Baur  and  others  who  deny  the  genuineness  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  recognize  a  finer  and  more  elevated  spiritual 
touch  in  its  portraiture  of  Christ  than  in  what  they  hold  to  be 
the  only  genuine  tradition.  "  Le  doux  et  profond  langage  du 
Christ  gnostique,  a  desarme,  conquis  les  plus  severes  critiques 
modernes.  lis  nient  hautement  I'historicite  des  recits  du  quat- 
rieme  iSvangile,  et  plus  encore  celle  des  discours,  mais  ils  en 
prennent  si  bien  I'esprit,  qu'ils  I'opposent  aux  donnees  les  plus 
certaines  des  Evangiles  judeo-chretiens,  absolument  comme  s'ils 
avaient  un  Jean  authentique."  La  Revolution  Religieuse  au  Dix^ 
neuvieme  Siecle,  par  F.  Huet,  p  194. 

2  Baur,  Die  Christliche  Kirche,  ii.  16^181. 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

time,  by  which  they  were  all  made  to  say  about  one 
and  the  same  thing.  The  idea  of  a  Catholic  faith, 
supported  by  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  Fathers, 
continues  to  perpetuate  the  error.  A  false  conception 
of  development  has  done  much  to  confuse  the  study  of 
ancient  theology,  by  taking  it  for  granted  that  because 
Augustine  lived  at  a  later  time,  he  therefore  built 
upon  the  same  foundation  with  his  predecessors  and 
carried  their  work  to  a  higher  stage. 

Whatever  the  source  from  which  it  springs,  there  is 
one  charge  so  often  alleged  against  the  Greek  theology 
that  it  deserves  a  moment's  notice.  It  is  said  that  it 
was  deficient  in  the  doctrines  of  sin  and  grace. 

It  is  true  that  the  Greek  fathers  did  not  accept  the 
doctrine  of  original  sin  as  propounded  by  Augus- 
tine,^ with  its  correlated  tenets  of  total  depravity,  the 
loss  of  the  freedom  of  the  will,  the  guilt  of  infants, 
predestination  or  reprobation  by  a  divine  decree,  or 
the  endlessness  of  future  punishment.  But  it  does 
not  follow  that  their  conception  of  sin  was  on  this  ac- 
count wanting  in  depth  or  adequacy.  If  the  attitude 
of  Augustine  is  to  be  taken  as  the  standard  of  Chris- 
tian teaching  upon  the  nature  of  sin,  its  origin  and  its 
consequences,  then  other  religions,  such  as  Mohammed- 
anism or  Buddhism,  would  seem  in  these  respects  to 
have  excelled  Christianity.  Compared  with  the  few 
allusions  to  the  future  consequences  of  sin,  and  these 
of  a  somewhat  general  character,  to  be  found  in  the 
New  Testament,  the  Koran  invokes  on  almost  every 
page  the  horrors  of  an  endless  torment  in  definite 
language  not  to  be  misunderstood.  If  the  nature  of 
man  is  wholly  corrupted  by  sin,  as  Augustine  taught, 

>  A  summary  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  anthropologies  is  given 
in  Shedd's  History  of  Christian  Doctrine,  ii.  pp.  42,  91. 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

Buddhism  rises  to  a  clearer  declaration  of  the  same 
principle,  when,  running  counter  to  life  itself,  it  makes 
sin  exist  in  all  desire.  If  views  like  these  constitute 
what  some  are  pleased  to  call  the  backbone  of  theol- 
ogy, then  the  ancient  Greek  theology  was  indeed  de- 
ficient, for  it  assigned  the  chief  importance  to  the 
belief  that  man  was  made  in  God's  image,  and  relied 
upon  indwelling  Deity  to  lead  mankind  from  sin  to 
righteousness. 

In  the  spirit  of  this  earlier  theology  sin  is  regarded 
as  a  transgression  of  the  law,  not  the  law  which  is  con- 
ceived as  an  arbitrary  appointment  of  a  will  external 
to  man,  but  the  law  written  in  his  constitution,  —  the 
life  and  the  truth  of  God  imprinted  on  the  human 
nature  in  order  that  it  may  become  partaker  of  the 
divine  nature.  To  this  end  the  incarnation  takes 
place,  that  man  may  be  delivered  from  the  power  of 
sin,  and  brought  into  harmony  with  that  law  which 
constitutes  the  life  of  God,  in  the  obedience  of  which 
consists  the  real  life  of  the  creature.  As  obedience  is 
life,  so  in  disobedience  is  death.  The  design  of  God, 
as  revealed  in  the  ages  that  preceded  the  coming  of 
Christ,  was  to  teach  mankind  how  sin  brought  forth 
death,  in  order  that,  in  the  light  of  the  incarnation, 
might  be  discerned  the  meaning  and  the  value  of  life.^ 
It  is  said  of  the  late  Mr.  Maurice,  that  being  asked 
for  the  best  treatise  on  the  nature  of  sin,  he  replied, 
St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians;  or,  in  other 
words,  that  method  which  most  clearly  presents  Christ 

^  This  qualitative  or  ethical  use  of  the  words  "life"  and 
"  death  "  is  common  to  Clement,  Origen,  and  Athanasius,  and  is 
in  harmony  with  their  use  in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  It  was,  howt 
ever,  objected  to  Mr.  Maurice,  by  a  distinguished  controversial- 
ist, that  this  use  was  non-natural.  Cf.  Mozley's  Essay s^  vol. 
ii.,  on  Maurice's  theology. 


14  INTRODUCTION. 

in  his  spiritual  exaltation  is  best  fitted  to  reveal  the 
nature,  the  extent,  the  enormity  of  sin.  Sucl^  might 
have  been  the  reply  of  Clement  of  Alexandria  or  of 
Athanasius,  such  surely  was  the  method  of  Greek  the- 
ology in  the  days  of  its  vigor  ;  and  even  in  its  decline, 
it  still  remained  true,  in  a  formal  way,  to  that  which 
had  been  its  ruling  principle.  The  Greek  church,  it 
has  been  often  remarked,  had  but  one  dogma,  that  of 
the  incarnation,  —  a  dogma,  it  should  be  remembered, 
resting  primarily,  not  on  the  authority  of  a  council, 
but  on  the  reason  or  the  Christian  consciousness,  — 
and  with  the  evolution  of  this  truth  in  its  relation  to 
God  and  to  humanity,  Greek  thought  and  speculation 
were  occupied  for  over  four  hundred  years.  In  this 
truth  lay  involved  all  the  issues  of  the  Christian  faith ; 
in  its  presence,  other  questions  paled  in  importance; 
by  its  light  were  to  be  interpreted  all  tenets  and  opin- 
ions concerning  man  and  his  destiny.  Hence  the  early 
fathers  did  not  base  their  theology  upon  speculations 
regarding  the  origin  of  evil ;  it  was  enough  to  know 
that  the  redemption  of  mankind  was  an  accomplished 
fact,  that  humanity  had  been  endowed  through  Christ 
in  its  own  right  with  a  recuperative  power,  which 
would  enable  it  to  struggle  successfully  against  all 
that  was  contrary  to  its  true  nature.  The  sense  of  sin 
was  not  regarded  as  an  experience  generated  in  the 
soul  apart  from  God,  for  there  was  a  divine  presence 
in  the  world  and  in  human  hearts  whose  mission  it  was 
to  convince  of  sin  and  righteousness.  There  was  no 
artificial  division  in  human  experience,  according  to 
which  the  sense  of  sin  must  first  prevail  and  dominate 
in  the  consciousness  before  a  man  could  receive  the 
Saviour  ;  but  the  knowledge  of  Christ,  and  his  recep- 
tion in  the  heart,  became  the  power  by  which  sin  was 


INTRODUCTION,  16 

increasingly  revealed,  and  by  which  also  it  was  over- 
come. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  add  that  all  this  was  reversed  in 
the  Augustinian  theology.  Another  conception  of  sin 
and  of  its  remedy  dates  its  rise  in  the  church  from  his 
influence,  and  was  maintained  by  the  Latin  church 
through  the  Middle  Ages.  The  system  of  the  confes- 
sional, with  its  penitential  books,  its  penances,  its 
priestly  absolutions,  and  conveyancing  of  grace ;  the 
distinction  between  mortal  and  venial  sins,  the  morbid 
introspection,  may  seem  to  some  minds  to  attach  a 
deeper  or  more  adequate  significance  to  sin,  but  it  is 
gained  by  a  great  sacrifice,  —  for  it  necessarily  in- 
volves an  inadequate  conception  of  Christ  and  his  re- 
demption. 

The  objection  to  the  Greek  theology,  that  its  view 
of  sin  is  superficial  or  defective,  is  an  old  and  familiar 
one,  and  it  is  suggestive  to  note  how  often  it  turns  up 
in  history  when  any  teaching  arises  which  contradicts 
the  traditional  methods  of  dealing  with  the  problem 
of  human  evil.  To  the  enemies  of  Christ,  it  appeared 
as  though  the  Saviour  himself  was  relaxing  the  bonds 
of  moral  order  when  He  sat  down  to  eat  with  publi- 
cans and  sinners,  or  when  He  dismissed  the  woman 
who  had  sinned  with  no  reproof,  but  wdth  the  gentle 
injunction,  "  Go  and  sin  no  more."  It  seemed  to  the 
hostile  Judaism  tracking  the  footsteps  of  St.  Paul,  as 
if  his  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  were  not  only 
deficient  in  its  estimate  of  sin,  but  as  if  it  put  a  pre- 
mium upon  sin, — "Shall  we  continue  in  sin  that  grace 
may  abound  ?  "  It  seemed  to  the  heathen  mind,  judg- 
ing from  Celsus'  attack  upon  Christianity,  that  the 
doctrine  of  forgiveness  was  shallow  and  immoral ;  that 
in  order  to  overcome  evil  it  must  be  held  that  for- 


16  INTRODUCTION. 

giveness  was  impossible,  and  that  every  sin  must  reap 
its  penalty  according  to  irrevocable  law.  It  seemed 
to  the  excited  mind  of  Latin  Christendom  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  as  if  the  methods  of  Luther  and  Cal- 
vin, in  dealing  with  sin,  were  of  a  nature  to  undo  the 
sanctions  of  morality  and  to  promote  unbridled  liber- 
tinism. It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  so  time-hon- 
ored an  objection,  the  embodiment  of  so  conservative 
an  instinct,  should  be  alleged  against  the  theology  of 
the  Greek  fathers. 

When  it  is  said  that  the  Greek  theology  failed,  not 
only  in  its  conception  of  sin,  but  in  its  doctrine  of 
grace,  the  remark  implies  a  misapprehension  of  its 
spirit.  The  doctrine  of  grace,  as  a  specific  influence 
passing  from  God  to  the  individual  spirit  through  ex- 
ternal channels  or  in  some  arbitrary  way,  a  grace  ap- 
plied to  the  soul  from  without  to  recreate  or  strengthen 
the  will  apart  from  the  natural  action  of  the  human 
faculties,  a  grace  which  might  be  forfeited  and  re- 
gained, which  on  occasions  might  be  and  was  with- 
drawn, —  of  such  a  doctrine,  which  has  played  so  large 
a  part  in  the  sacramental  and  Calvinistic  theologies,  it 
must  be  admitted  the  early  Greek  theology  knew 
nothing.^     The  place  occupied  by  grace  in  Latin  the- 

1  Cf.  Wilson's  Bampton  Lectures  (1851),  The  Communion  of 
Saints,  p.  302,  for  an  analysis  of  the  passages  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  which  the  word  grace  occurs.  Very  few  of  them,  the 
author  infers,  can  be  thought  to  have  any  bearing  on  what  are 
popularly  known  as  the  "  doctrines  of  grace,"  or  would  give  any 
support  to  such  doctrines.  "There  is  not  one  text  in  which 
the  word  occurs  in  any  connection  with  either  of  the  sacraments." 
It  is  a  remark  of  Joubert's,  Pensees,  35  :  —  "  Les  jansenistes  font 
la  grace  une  espece  de  quatrieme  personne  de  la  sainte  Trinity. 
Saint  Paul  et  Saint  Augustin,  trop  etudids  ou  etudies  uniquement, 
ont  tout  perdu  si  on  ose  le  dire.     Au  lieu  de  grace,  dites  aide,  se- 


INTRODUCTION.  17 

ology  is  filled  by  the  presence  of  a  divine  teacher, 
whose  own  eternal  life,  by  contact  with  human  souls, 
becomes  the  source  of  life,  of  all  streng-th  and  growth ; 
the  infinite  indwelling  Spirit,  whose  action  is  not  ar- 
bitrary, but  uniform  as  the  laws  of  nature.  The  doc- 
trine of  grace^  as  taught  by  Augustine,  or  as  it  has 
been  held  in  mediaeval  and  Protestant  theology,  was 
the  Latin  substitute  for  that  belief  in  the  immanence 
of  God  in  humanity,  which  had  constituted  the  prin- 
ciple of  Greek  theology,  and  was  giving  way  in  the 
fifth  century  to  another  and  lower  conception  of  the 
relations  of  God  to  man. 

It  may  be  said,  that  to  revert  to  the  theology  of  a 
distant  age  would  be  a  retrogressive  movement  in  re- 
ligious thought ;  that  we  are  to  seek  for  some  recon- 
struction in  theology  by  the  light  of  our  own  reason 
rather  than  under  the  guidance  of  the  Nicene  fathers. 
But  such  an  attitude  toward  the  past  carries  with  it 
its  own  condemnation.  The  gTound  of  hope  and  prog- 
ress in  this  recognition  of  a  theology  in  the  ancient 
church,  higher  than  that  which  has  hitherto  prevailed 
in  Christendom,  is  the  attestation  thus  gained  for  the 
human  consciousness  as  the  ultimate  source  of  author- 

cours,  influence  divdne,  celeste  rosee:  on  s'entend  alors.  Ce  mot 
est  comme  un  talisman  dont  on  pent  briser  le  prestige  et  le  male- 
fice  en  le  traduisant:  on  en  dissout  le  danger  par  I'analyse.  Per- 
sonnifier  les  mots  est  un  mal  funeste  en  thdologie." 

In  Tyndale's  translation  of  the  New  Testament,  the  attempt 
was  made  to  break  the  mediaeval  prestige  of  the  word  grace  by 
rendering  it  "favor."  Cf.  St.  Luke  i.  28,  where  "  Ave^  gratia 
plena  "  of  the  Vulgate  becomes,  "  Hail,  thou  that  art  highly  fa- 
vored," etc.  King  James's  translators  retained  in  some  places 
the  old  rendering,  and  in  others  followed  Tyndale.  The  revised 
version  follows  the  same  usage. 


/^f^ 


18  INTRODUCTION. 

ity  in  religious  truth.  Were  the  present  movement  in 
theological  thought  emphatically  new,  had  it  never 
found  substantial  utterance  in  all  these  as:es  of  Chris- 
tian  history,  one  might  well  be  inclined  to  suspect  that 
it  had  no  foundation  in  the  nature  of  man.  That 
which  is  new  in  theology  cannot  be  true ;  a  proposition 
of  which  the  converse  holds  equally  good,  that  what  is 
true  cannot  be  new.  A  return  to  the  theology  of  the 
ancient  church  does  not  mean  the  abandonment  of  the 
reason,  or  the  shutting  our  eyes  to  the  light  which  God 
especially  vouchsafes  to  the  later  ages  of  the  church. 
Our  task  to-day  is  not  a  mechanical  reproduction  of 
past  thought,  or  a  literal  adherence  to  the  forms  in 
which  it  Was  cast.  There  were  elements  in  the  meth- 
ods of  Greek  theology  which  we  cannot  accept ;  there 
was  much  which  the  early  fathers  saw  imperfectly,  or 
not  at  all.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  their  defects,  and  the 
disadvantages  under  which  they  labored,  the  Greek 
theologians  may  be  to  us,  what  Plato  and  Aristotle 
have  been  to  modern  philosophical  thought,  —  our 
emancipators  from  false  conceptions,  our  guides  to  a 
more  spiritual,  more  intellectual,  more  comprehensive 
interpretation  of  the  Christian  faith,  than  the  church 
has  known  since  the  German  races  passed  under  the 
tutelage  of  the  Roman  bishops,  and  accepted  a  Latin- 
ized Christianity  in  place  of  the  original  divine  reve- 
lation.    In  the  words  of  a  recent  writer,^  — 

"  We  have  lost  much  of  that  rich  splendor,  that  large- 
hearted  fullness  of  power,  which  characterizes  the  great 
Greek  masters  of  theology.  We  have  suffered  our  faith 
for  so  long  to  accept  the  pinched  and  narrow  limits  of  a 
most  unapostolic  divinity,  that  we  can  hardly  persuade  peo- 

1  Rev.  H.  S.  Holland,  M.  A.,  Logic  and  Life,  with  other  Ser- 
mons, page  vii. 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

pie  to  recall  how  wide  was  the  sweep  of  Christian  thought 
in  the  first  centuries,  how  largely  it  dealt  with  these  deep 
problems  of  spiritual  existence  and  development,  which  now 
once  more  impress  upon  us  the  seriousness  of  the  issues 
amid  which  our  souls  are  traveling.  We  have  let  people 
forget  all  that  our  creed  has  to  say  about  the  unity  of  all 
creation,  or  about  the  evolution  of  history,  or  about  the 
universality  of  the  divine  action  through  the  Word.  We 
have  lost  the  power  of  wielding  the  mighty  language  with 
which  Athanasius  expands  the  significance  of  creation  and 
regeneration,  of  incarnation  and  sacrifice,  and  redemption 
and  salvation  and  glory." 

After  all,  however,  the  question  is  not  whether  we 
shall  return  or  ought  to  return  to  what  is  called  the 
Nicene  theology ;  the  fact  is,  that  the  return  has  al- 
ready begun.  The  tendencies  of  what  we  call  modern 
religious  thought  have  been  reproducing  the  outlines 
of  an  elder  theology,  while  we  have  been  unconscious 
even  of  its  existence.  There  is  hardly  a  point  on 
which  there  is  to-day  a  disposition  to  diverge  from  the 
traditional  theology,  which  has  not  been  anticipated  by 
the  Greek  fathers.  None  of  the  individual  doctrines 
or  tenets,  which  have  so  long  been  the  objects  of  dis- 
like and  animadversion  to  the  modern  theological 
mind,  formed  any  constituent  part  of  Greek  theology. 
The  tenets  of  original  sin  and  total  depravity,  as 
expounded  by  Augustine,  and  received  by  the  Prot- 
estant churches  from  the  Latin  church ;  the  guilt  of 
infants,  the  absolute  necessity  of  baptism  in  order  to 
salvation,  the  denial  of  the  freedom  of  the  will,  the 
doctrine  of  election,  the  idea  of  a  schism  in  the  di- 
vine nature  which  required  a  satisfaction  to  retribu- 
tive justice  before  love  could  grant  forgiveness,  the 
atonement  as  a  principle  of  equivalence  by  which  the 


20  INTRODUCTION. 

sufferings  of  Christ  were  weighed  in  a  balance  against 
the  endless  sufferings  of  the  race,  the  notion  that 
revelation  is  confined  within  the  book,  guaranteed 
by  the  inspiration  of  the  letter  or  by  a  line  of  priestly 
curators  in  apostolic  descent,  the  necessity  of  miracles 
as  the  strongest  evidences  of  the  truth  of  a  revealed 
religion,  the  doctrine  of  sacramental  grace  and  priestly 
mediation,  the  idea  of  the  church  as  identical  with 
some  particular  form  of  ecclesiastical  organization,  — 
these  and  other  tenets  which  have  formed  the  gist  of 
modern  religious  controversy  find  no  place  in  the 
Greek  theology,  and  are  irreconcilable  with  its  spirit. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  doctrine  of  the  incarna- 
tion, in  the  fullness  and  sublimity  of  its  real  import,  — 
the  essence  of  the  Christian  faith,  from  which  other 
beliefs  and  convictions  must  spring,  and  with  which 
they  must  correspond,  —  this  truth  is  finding  in  mod- 
ern times  a  recognition  and  appreciation  akin  to  that 
which  it  held  in  the  theology  of  Athanasius. 


THE  GEEEK   THEOLOGY. 

Deus  erat  in  Christo  mandum  reconcilians  sibi.  —  2  Cor.  v.  19. 
Erat  lux  vera,  quae  illuminat  omnem  hominem  venientem  in  hunc  mnn- 
dum.  —  St.  John  i.  9. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


B.  C. 

800.  [c]  The  great  age  of  Hebrew  prophecy  begins. 

600.  [c]  The  rise  of  Buddhism. 

684.  (?)  Birth  of  Pythagoras. 

469-400.  Socrates. 

430-348.   Plato. 

384-322.  Aristotle. 

340-264.  Zeno,  founder  of  the  Stoic  schooL 

A.  D. 

65.  Seneca  died. 

70.  Fall  of  Jerusalem. 

89.  Epictetus  flourished. 

115.  (1)  Martyrdom  of  Ignatius. 

120.  (1)  Plutarch  died. 

150.  [c]  Celsus,  Montanus,  Marcion. 

160-170.  Pseudo-Clementine  writings. 

161-180.  Marcus  Aurelius,  Emperor. 

166.  ("?)  Justin  became  a  martyr. 

185-254.  Origen. 

202.  Irenaeus  died,  Pantaenus  died. 

204-270.  Piotinus. 

220    Clement  of  Alexandria  died. 

243.  Aramonius  Saccas  died. 

250.  [c]    Sabellius. 

260.   Paul  of  Samosata. 

274.    Manichseism. 

296-373.   Athanasius. 

318.    Rise  of  Arianism. 

325.   Council  of  Nicaea. 

326-379.   Basil  of  Caesarea. 

330-389.   Gregory  of  Nazianzus. 

400.  [c]  Gregory  of  Nyssa  died. 


fei^OE' 


2^ 

THE  GREEK  THEOLOGY. 


The  transition  from  the  age  of  the  apostles  to  the 
age  of  the  early  Christian  fathers  is  involved  in  the 
darkness  and  secrecy  which  seems  to  attend,  as  by  a 
universal  law,  the  beginning  of  all  great  movements 
in  history.  At  the  very  moment  when  we  are  most 
anxious  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  Christian  church, 
we  are  thrown  back  upon  conjecture  and  hypothesis. 
The  period  extending  .  from  the  fall  of  Jerusalem 
(a.  d.  70)  to  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  a 
period  covering  the  lifetime  of  more  than  two  genera- 
tions, is  almost  a  blank  so  far  as  any  positive  knowl- 
edge can  be  drawn  from  the  writers  who  have  been 
designated  the  Apostolic  Fathers.  But  we  turn  to 
them  still  with  a  curious  interest,  —  these  writers  who 
might  have  told  us  so  much,  but  who  have  told  us 
so  little.  We  can  feel  as  we  read  them  that  we  are 
watching  in  the  early  dawn  of  a  great  day,  by  whose 
cool,  dim  light  are  faintly  outlined  the  characteristics 
of  the  church  that  is  to  be.  In  the  Roman  Clement's 
exhortations  to  humility,  so  significant  as  proceeding 
from  the  home  of  the  later  papacy,  or  in  the  military 
aspects  which  in  his  pages  the  ecclesiastical  adminis- 
tration is  assuming ;  in  Ignatius's  reflection  that  the 
confession  made  by  martyrdom  would  bring  him  into 
a  more  intimate  relation  to  the  Lord  ;  in  the  sombre 
mood  of  the  Pastor  of  Hermas,  where  the  tower  which 


24  THE  GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

represents  the  destinies  of  the  church  is  seen  rapidly 
Hearing  its  completion ;  in  the  fragments  of  Papias, 
who  was  storing  up  in  his  memory  the  oral  traditions 
of  an  earlier  age,  under  the  feeling  that  "  what  was 
to  be  got  from  books  was  not  so  profitable  to  him  as 
what  came  from  the  living  and  abiding  voice ;  "  in  the 
speculations  of  the  unknown  author  of  the  "Epistle 
to  Diognetus,"  as  to  the  reason  of  Christ's  late  ap- 
pearance in  the  world,  —  in  hints  like  these  are  seen 
the  germs  of  the  larger  movements,  whether  of  senti- 
ment, thought,  or  action,  which  mark  the  church  when 
it  emerges  into  the  clearer  light  of  history. 

While  the  fragments  of  this  obscure  period  shed  lit- 
tle or  no  light  on  the  points  about  which  ecclesiastical 
controversy  has  turned,  —  such,  for  example,  as  the 
nature  of  the  church's  government,^  and  her  ritual 
usages,  or  the  origin  of  the  gospels  and  the  authorship 
and  purpose  of  the  disputed  books  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament,—  we  may  still  be  thankful  that  they  reveal  as 
much  as  they  do,  that  in  them  we  may  discern  the 
tendencies  operating  from  the  beginning  which  are  to 
color  the  history  of  the  church  in  all  coming  time. 
Especially  do  they  disclose  to  us  how  races  were  still 
preserving  their  national  characteristics  under  the 
shelter  of  the  common  faith,  how  the  peculiarities  of 

1  The  recently  discovered  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles, 
which  probably  belongs  to  the  same  age,  adds  more  definite  infor- 
mation regarding  Christian  antiquities,  as  they  are  called,  than 
any  other  of  the  writings  attributed  to  the  apostolic  fathers.  But 
into  what  confusion  it  plunges  long  established  traditions  re- 
specting the  ministry  and  the  sacraments  !  If  anything  could 
excite  suspicion  as  to  its  genuineness,  it  would  be  the  abundant 
confirmation  it  yields  to  the  conclusions  of  historical  scholarship 
as  to  the  origin  of  the  church's  order  and  the  nature  and  admin- 
istration of  the  sacraments. 


EPISTLE   TO  DIOGNETUS.  25 

inherited  cultures  were  to  modify  the  interpretation  of 
the  Christian  principle.  Clement  of  Rome  writes  as 
a  genuine  Roman,  concerned  with  matters  of  adminis- 
tration and  of  subordination  to  authority.  Ignatius, 
who  may  be  taken  as  representing  the  Christian  com- 
munities of  Asia  Minor,  displays  the  traditional  con- 
servative spirit,  —  the  timidity  and  anxiety  in  the  pres- 
ence of  innovations,  which  continue  to  this  day  such 
prominent  features  of  oriental  Christendom.  The 
writer  of  the  beautiful  epistle  to  Diognetus  betrays  by 
his  style  and  thought  the  influence  of  Hellenic  culture, 
and  gives,  as  it  were  in  epitome,  the  theology  which 
was  to  be  developed  under  the  great  masters  of  a 
later  age,  a  Clement  of  Alexandria,  an  Origen,  and  an 
Athanasius. 

A  brief  survey  of  this  epistle  may  serve  as  an  intro- 
duction to  the  Greek  theology.  The  date  of  its  com- 
position cannot  be  definitely  determined,  but  it  is  gen- 
erally admitted  that  its  author  lived  very  near  to  the 
time  of  the  apostles. 


In  the  mind  of  this  unknown  author,  the  Christian 
principle  is  identical  with  what  Plato  had  taught  to  be 
the  highest  aspiration  of  man,  —  the  "  free  imitation 
of  God."  To  love  God  is  to  be  an  imitator  of  his 
character,  an  imitation  which  is  possible  to  man  be- 
cause he  is  made  in  the  divine  image.  He  who  as- 
sumes his  neighbor's  burdens,  who  is  ready  to  commu- 
nicate to  those  who  are  deficient  the  blessings  he  has 
received,  becomes  in  his  turn,  as  it  were,  a  God  to 
those  who  receive  his  benefits,  and  truly  follows  that 
which  is  most  characteristic  of  the  nature  of  Deity. 
To  such  an  one  it  is  given  to  see  God  and  to  enter  into 


26  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

the  mysteries  of  the  divine  nature.  When  God  would 
redeem  the  world  from  wickedness  to  the  obedience  of 
the  faith,  he  does  not  send  any  servant  or  angel,  or 
any  ruler  in  the  celestial  hierarchies,  however  exalted 
his  rank,  but  He  comes  who  is  the  creator  and  fash- 
ioner of  all  things.  The  evidence  of  the  incarnation 
of  the  eternal  Wisdom  in  humanity  is  not  sought  for 
in  miracles,  but  in  the  moral  transformation  exhibited 
in  Christian  lives,  in  the  heroic  endurance  of  persecu- 
tion, in  the  growth  of  the  church,  which  no  earthly 
power  can  hinder. 

Such  a  revelation  commends  itself  to  the  spiritual 
consciousness  of  man.  No  allusion  is  made  by  the 
writer  of  this  epistle  to  Jewish  prophecies  foretelling 
the  advent  of  Christ ;  he  does  not  attempt  to  repro- 
duce the  apostolic  teaching,  but  he  is  occupied  with 
grounding  what  he  conceives  to  be  the  Christian  idea 
in  the  inmost  instincts  of  man ;  he  speaks  of  Christ  in 
His  spiritual  being  as  established  firmly  by  God  in 
human  hearts.  In  the  importance  assigned  to  knowl- 
edge he  shows  still  further  the  influence  of  his  Hel- 
lenic culture.  It  was  not  the  tree  of  knowledge  in  the 
ancient  paradise  that  proved  destructive.  The  tree  of 
life  was  planted  close  to  the  tree  of  knowledge,  to  in- 
dicate that  there  can  be  no  life  without  knowledge,  and 
that  apart  from  knowledge  life  is  insecure. 

Nothing  is  said  by  this  writer  regarding  the  nature 
of  Christian  worship  except  indirectly,  by  way  of  pro- 
test against  the  superstitions  of  the  Jews.  In  these 
are  included  their  sacrifices,  their  scruples  concerning 
meats,  their  ideas  of  Sabbath  observance,  their  no- 
tions about  fasting  and  new  moons  and  circumcision, 
all  of  which  are  spoken  of  as  ridiculous  and  unworthy 
of  notice.    The  use  of  seasons,  some  for  festivities  and 


JUSTIN  MARTYR.  27 

some  for  mourning,  is  no  part  of  divine  worship.  But 
the  mystery  of  the  Christian  cultus,  it  is  said,  cannot 
be  learned  from  any  mortal.  The  worship  of  the 
Christians,  which  distinguishes  them  from  every  people 
amono-  whom  they  sojourn,  is  essentially  a  moral  atti- 
tude toward  God  and  toward  man,  —  the  love  which  is 
the  fulfilling  of  the  law.  Hence,  to  sum  up  all  in  one 
word,  "  the  Christians  are  in  the  world  what  the  soul  is 
in  the  body."  They  are  diffused  thi-oughout  aU  cities, 
in  the  world  but  not  of  it.  As  the  soul  is  the  princi- 
ple which  holds  the  body  together,  so  Christians  hold 
together  the  world  itself. 

In  such  an  utterance  as  this  may  be  traced  the 
earliest  and  also  the  highest  conception  of  the  Catho- 
lic church,  —  the  embodiment  of  humanity  in  its  ideal 
aspect.  Such  a  conviction  of  the  absolute  value  and 
universal  mission  of  the  church,  in  the  mind  of  a  soli- 
tary thinker  musing  in  the  early  dawn  of  Christian 
history,  is  a  testimony  that  a  new  life  has  entered  into 
humanity,  which  persecution  cannot  extinguish,  and 
which  is  destined  to  overcome  the  world. 

When  we  reach  the  age  of  Justin,  who  became  a 
martyr  in  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius  (a.  d.  166), 
the  church  is  beginning  to  emerge  from  its  hidden  ex- 
istence into  the  clear  light  of  history.  In  the  account 
of  his  conversion,  we  have  a  picture  of  the  world  of 
educated  thought  in  the  middle  of  the  second  century. 
The  varieties  and  confusions  of  opinion  are  seen  in 
contrast  with  the  power  of  the  new  revelation  slowly 
making  its  way  to  the  conquest  of  the  human  intellect. 
Like  Augustine,  whom  in  other  respects  he  also  re- 
sembles, Justin  had  run  through  the  different  schools 
of  heathen  thought  before  finding  that  which  his  spirit 
craved.     Beginning  with  Stoicism,  he  turned  from  it 


28  THE  GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

to  Aristotle ;  he  then  made  a  trial  of  Pythagoreanism, 
and  had  at  last  adopted  the  Platonic  philosophy  as 
the  only  adequate  explanation  of  the  problems  of  life, 
when  he  was  once  more  unsettled  by  the  presentation 
of  the  Christian  faith,  in  which  he  reached  the  com- 
plete satisfaction  of  his  being,  of  his  intellectual  as 
well  as  his  moral  nature. 

The  nationality  of  Justin  is  unknown.  After  his 
conversion  he  passed  much  of  his  life  in  Rome,  where 
he  is  said  to  have  established  a  school  for  the  philo- 
sophical explanation  and  defense  of  Christianity.  But 
such  an  institution  had  little  chance  of  success  in  the 
Eternal  City,  and  it  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that  the 
school  ceased  to  exist  after  his  death,  having  pro- 
duced one  unfortunate  disciple,  Tatian,  whose  career 
did  little  credit  to  his  master.  As  a  theologian,  Jus- 
tin must  be  regarded  as  a  representative  of  that  ten- 
dency which  afterward  gave  birth  to  Latin  theology. 
Through  his  familiarity  with  that  phase  of  Christi- 
anity which  prevailed  at  Rome  where  Jewish  influence 
was  especially  active,  he  was  led  to  adopt  the  current 
opinions  of  the  church  in  Rome,  to  identify  them  with 
the  Christian  revelation,  and  to  fall  back  for  their  de- 
fense upon  the  authority  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures. 
One  can  see  from  his  mental  history  that  he  had  a 
taste  for  philosophy  rather  than  that  high  mental  en- 
dowment which  constitutes  the  genuine  philosopher. 
His  culture  consisted  in  what  he  gained  from  this  or 
that  teacher,  rather  than  in  the  attainment  of  the  phil- 
osophic mind. 

But  in  one  important  respect  Justin  differs  from 
those  who  followed  him  as  teachers  of  Christianity  in 
the  Latin  church,  —  he  did  not  turn  his  back  upon 
philosophy  as  an  evil  thing  when  he  became  a  Chris- 


RELATION  TO   GREEK  PHILOSOPHY.        29 

tian.  Tertullian  and  Irenaeus,  and  even  Augustine 
in  his  later  years,  condemned  philosophy  as  a  source 
of  danger  and  evil  to  the  church,  as  the  parent  of  all 
heresy.  Justin  on  the  other  hand  remained  true  to  his 
old  teachers.  After  his  conversion  he  still  continued 
to  wear  his  philosopher's  cloak,  and  maintained  that 
Christianity  was  the  only  true  philosophy.  He  recog- 
nized a  continuity  in  his  spiritual  history.  He  had  not 
accepted  the  gospel  because  he  had  found  his  pagan 
teachers  to  be  false,  —  they  were  true,  and  had  taught 
truly  so  far  as  they  had  conformed  to  that  divine  reason 
which  is  everywhere  diffused  throughout  the  world. ^ 

In  this  attitude  of  Justin  toward  Greek  philosophy 
may  be  seen  the  first  great  theological  issue  which 
divided  the  ancient  church.  Justin  represents  the 
class  of  educated  minds  who  had  been  led  to  Chris- 
tianity by  another  line  of  approach  than  that  which 
lay  through  Jewish  tradition,  and  who  could  not  but 
maintain  the  continuity  of  their  spiritual  develop aient. 
Although  they  had  not  been  taught  to  believe,  as  had 
the  Jewish  Christians,  in  a  Messiah  foretold  by  Hebrew 
prophets,  they  saw  behind  them  a  long  and  glorious 
line  of  philosophers  and  teachers,  through  whose  pre- 
paratory labors  they  had  been  enabled  to  enter  into 
the  heritage  of  the  Christian  faith.  When  Justin  is 
obliged  to  meet  the  objection,  that  since  Christ  had 
beenjborn  only  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  before,  all 
who  lived  previous  to  his  advent  were  without  the  true 
light  for  the  reason  and  the  conscience,  he  rises  at 
once  to  the  idea  of  the  spiritual  essential  Christ  who 
is  limited  by  no  conditions  of  time  or  space.  Christ 
is  the  Word  of  whom  every  race  of  men  are  par- 
takers. Those  who  have  lived  in  a  manner  conformed 
1  Apol.,{.  c.  10. 


30  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

to  truth  are  Christians,  even  though  they  have  been 
held  as  atheists.^  Such  were,  among  the  Greeks, 
Socrates  and  Heraclitus  and  those  ^\io  resembled 
them  ;  and  among  the  barbarians,  Abraham,  Ananias, 
Azariah,  Misael,  Elias,  and  many  others  of  whom 
it  is  superfluous  to  mention  the  deeds  or  recite  the 
names.  Of  Socrates  and  others,  he  further  remarks, 
that  like  the  Christians  they  were  persecuted  because 
of  their  devotion  to  the  truth.  For  Socrates  had 
known  Christ,^  though  but  in  part,  for  Christ  was 
and  is  the  divine  reason  which  is  universally  diffused. 
In  all  this  Justin  was  only  expanding  the  utterance  of 
St.  John,  "  He  was  the  light  that  lighteth  every  man 
that  Cometh  into  the  world."  ^ 

Justin  is  the  first  writer  among  the  ancient  Fathers 
to  assert  the  truth  that  God  had  revealed  Himself  to 
the  heathen  world  as  well  as  to  the  Jewish  people,  that 
He  had  done  so  not  merely  through  some  subordinate 
process  in  external  nature,  but  through  his  Son,  who 
is  the  divine  reason  in  every  man.  In  this  compre- 
hensive idea  of  revelation  is  revealed  the  influence  of 
the  Stoic  philosophy  which  was  still  potent  in  the  spir- 
itual atmosphere  of  the  age.  The  indwelling  divine 
reason  which  Justin  identifies  with  the  Christ  who  in 
the  fullness  of  time  became  manifest  in  the  flesh,  is  no 
other  than  the  immanent  Deity  of  whom  Seneca  says 
that  He  is  near  to  man,  is  with  him  and  is  in  him, 
who  not  only  comes  near  to  men  but  comes  into  them, 
whose  abiding  presence  in  the  soul  alone  makes  good- 
ness possible.* 

1  Apol,  i.  c.  46.  2  Apol,  ii.  c.  10. 

2  Cf.  Diet.  Christian  Antiquities,  Art.  Justinus,  by  Rev.  H.  S. 
Holland,  M.  A.,  for  a  discussion  of  the  point,  whether  Justin  was 
familiar  with  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

*  Ep.  ad  LuSilium,  41,  73. 


INFLUENCE  OF  PLATO,  31 

But  there  is  also  to  be  discerned  in  Justin's  thought 
the  influence  of  the  Platonic  philosophy,  leading  him 
to  another  and  widely  different  conception  of  Deity. 
The  treatise  of  Plato  which  seems  to  have  most  pow- 
erfully affected  the  religious  thought  of  the  second 
century  was  the  "Timaeus,"  which  deals  more  directly 
with  theology  than  the  other  dialogues.  Here  the 
Deity  appears  withdrawn  from  the  world  into  a  dis- 
tant heaven,  distinct  and  separated  from  the  creation, 
because  of  the  evil  with  which  matter  is  essentially 
connected.  1  Justin  tells  us  that  the  Stoic  idea  of  God 
was  deficient  in  that  it  made  Him  responsible  for  the 
evil  in  the  world  by  identifying  Him  too  closely  with 
the  life  underlying  all  phenomena.  It  was  this  sense 
of  evil  to  which  the  conscience  of  Plato  had  become 
so  sensitive,  that  was  also  operating  upon  the  minds 
of  thoughtful  and  earnest  men  in  the  second  century, 
and  was  leading  them  to  a  renewed  study  of  the  Pla- 
tonic philosophy.  The  consciousness  of  sin  was  ban- 
ishing God  from  the  universe  ;  and  it  was  becoming  a 
question  whether  the  Christian  consciousness  of  re- 
demption —  the  conviction  that  this  world  had  been 
actually  redeemed  by  Christ  —  was  strong  enough  to 
reverse  the  tide  of  heathen  thought,  and  to  maintain 
its  hold  upon  a  God  united  to  humanity  in  an  organic 
indissoluble  relationship. 

In  the  writings  of  Justin  we  find  the  first  traces  of 
the  conflict  between  these  two  tendencies,  —  a  conflict 
which  went  on  for  two  centuries  before  the  church 
acquiesced  in  the  theology  of  Athanasius.  Justin 
does  little  more  than  reveal  the  conditions  of  the 
great  issue.  On  the  one  hand,  in  accordance  with 
what  he  has  received  from  Plato,  he  speaks  of  Deity 
^  Cf.  Jowett's  Introduction  to  the  Timceus,  i^.  p.  458. 


32  THE  GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

as  the  unknown  and  the  unknowable,  the  ineffable 
transcendent  One,  the  absolute  in  the  sense  that  He 
exists  in  His  completeness  and  perfection  apart  from 
all  relation  to  the  world  of  finite  being.  But  on  the 
other  hand  his  gaze  is  fixed  in  love  and  adoration  on 
the  immanent  Deity  revealed  in  Christ.  He  may  be 
deficient,  he  undoubtedly  was,  when  judged  by  the 
technical  language  of  a  later  age,  in  his  definition  of 
the  relation  of  Christ  to  the  Father,  but  there  can  be 
no  doubt  in  which  direction  his  thought  was  traveling. 
The  Christ  whom  he  worshiped  was  the  eternal  Wis- 
dom become  incarnate,  the  indwelling  God  by  whom 
the  worlds  were  fashioned,  whose  existence  is  recog- 
nized in  human  souls,  who  mingles  with  humanity 
"  as  the  perfume  with  the  flower,  as  the  salt  with  the 
waters  of  the  sea." 

It  is  unnecessary  to  allude  here  to  the  opinions  on 
other  subjects  connected  with  the  Christian  faith,  put 
forth  by  Justin  as  the  orthodox  teaching  of  the  church. 
It  may  be  said  of  them  in  passing,  that  they  are  for 
the  most  part  in  harmony  with  that  theological  ten- 
dency which  was  afterward  more  fully  represented 
by  TertuUian.  It  is  vain  to  attempt  to  reconcile  the 
contradictions  in  Justin's  thought.  Opposing  cur- 
rents of  influence  met  in  his  mind,  and  while  he  was 
in  some  respects  the  forerunner  of  the  Greek  theology, 
he  leaned  in  his  practical  conception  of  Christianity 
to  the  Jewish  legal  attitude  which  saw  in  Christianity 
a  new  law,  and  in  Christ  a  second  law-giver,  after  the 
analogy  of  the  Mosaic  dispensation.  His  conception 
of  Deity  after  the  Platonic  idea,  as  the  absolute  and 
the  incomprehensible,  prevented  his  rising  to  the 
knowledge  of  God  as  the  father,  or  his  grounding  the 
revelation  in  the  divine  love,  as  the  inmost  essence  of 


FREEDOM  OF  THOUGHT.  33 

the  being  whom  Christ  revealed.  But  despite  his 
contradictions  and  his  failures,  the  genuine  Christian 
feeling  in  Justin  was  never  overcome.  His  writings 
remain  as  a  monument  to  that  earlier,  purer  type  of 
Christianity,  when  priesthood  and  altar,  temple  and 
sacrifice,  were  regarded  as  having  been  abolished  in 
Christ ;  when  as  yet  there  was  no  observance  of  sacred 
seasons,  for  life  was  one  perpetual  Sabbath  or  day  of 
rejoicing;  when  fasting  was  not  an  outward  obser- 
vance but  an  inward  principle  of  restraint  upon  all 
evil.i 

n. 

Christian  theology  was  the  fruit  of  the  Greek  gen- 
ius, and  had  its  origin  in  the  Greek  city  of  Alexan- 
dria. It  was  here,  in  the  second  and  third  centuries, 
that  the  most  favorable  conditions  existed  for  the 
development  of  Christian  thought.  Not  only  was  the 
Greek  genius  still  at  the  height  of  its  powers,  but  it 
had  renewed  its  life  on  this  foreisTi  soil.  Alexandria 
had  become  more  thoroughly  Greek  than  Athens  in 
the  days  of  its  renown.  For  the  first  time  in  history 
thought  was  absolutely  free.^  No  dominant  religious 
conviction  could  hinder  the  freest  inquiry,  no  fear  of 
persecution  repressed  the  utterance  of  obnoxious 
tenets.  The  limits  of  thought  were  as  boundless  as 
the  flight  of  the  human  imagination.  In  such  an  at- 
mosphere it  was  inevitable  that  the  largest  hearing 
should  be  accorded  to  him  who  spoke  most  directly 
and  powerfully  to  the  heart,  the  conscience,  and  the 
reason  of  the  age.  In  the  presence  of  the  truth,  the 
oppositions  of  error  tended  ultimately  to  die  away. 

1  Dial  cum  Trypli.,  cc.  15,  21,  22,  117. 
*  Cf.  Renan,  ConferenceSy  p.  22. 


34  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY, 

This  rare  conjunction  of  intellectual  freedom,  and  of 
the  intellectual  capacity  to  improve  it,  was  not  of  long 
duration ;  but  before  it  vanished,  to  reappear  again 
only  when  ages  had  rolled  away,  it  had  given  birth  to 
Christian  theology.  The  Christian  thinkers  in  Alex- 
andria, at  that  favored  moment  in  the  history  of 
thought,  gave  the  outlines  of  a  theology  which  for 
spirituality  and  Catholicity  could  never  be  rivaled  or 
even  appreciated  at  its  true  value,  till,  in  an  age  like 
our  own,  the  same  conditions  which  made  its  first 
appearance  possible,  should  make  its  reproduction  a 
necessity. 

The  resemblance  between  the  second  century  and 
the  nineteenth  has  often  been  noted.  The  likeness  is 
seen  more  especially  in  this,  that  the  conquests  of 
Rome  iiad  brought  the  then  existing  world  together, 
had  compacted  it  and  made  it  more  easy  of  compre- 
hension, just  as  in  recent  times  mechanical  appliances 
in  navigation  and  the  quick  communication  of  intelli- 
gence have  again  repeated  the  same  result  on  a  larger 
scale.  The  benefit  of  Roman  conquests  to  later  civ- 
ilization has  been  fully  acknowledged  in  the  results 
achieved  by  Roman  jurisprudence.  The  necessity  of 
enforcing  one  common  method  of  legal  procedure  upon 
a  variety  of  peoples,  each  with  its  own  conception  of 
justice  and  of  its  practical  administration,  gave  rise  to 
the  comprehensive  spirit  of  Roman  law  and  the  en- 
deavor to  ground  it  in  the  nature  of  man.  A  similar 
necessity  gave  rise  to  similar  efforts  in  the  sphere  of 
religious  thought.  If,  on  the  one  hand,  the  spectacle 
of  so  many  religions  dividing  the  allegiance  of  men 
created  confusion  and  skepticism,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  were  those  who  sought  to  penetrate  beneath  the 
diversity  to  some  underlying  principle  of  unity,  and 


DESIRE  FOR    UNITY.  35 

by  doing  justice  to  all  the  elements  of  truth  and 
spiritual  thought  wherever  they  might  be  found,  at- 
tain the  idea  of  a  universal  religion.  Such  an  effort 
was  made  by  Plutarch  and  other  heathens  who  stand 
as  the  representatives  of  heathen  faith  in  the  midst 
of  a  prevailing  skepticism.  Such  also  was  the  role  of 
some  of  the  Gnostics,  and  at  a  later  time  of  the  Neo- 
Platonic  philosoph5%  A  similar  duty  devolved  upon 
the  Christian  thinkers  of  Alexandria.  They  were 
forced,  if  they  would  address  intelligently  and  success- 
fully the  inquiring  mind  of  heathenism,  to  do  justice 
to  the  truth  in  all  systems  of  thought,  to  interpret 
their  aspirations  after  the  eternal  light,  to  emphasize 
the  value  and  importance  of  the  divine  revelation 
given  in  Greek  philosophy,  and  always  to  keep  prom- 
inently in  view  that  feature  of  Christianity  upon  which 
rested  its  claim  to  be  a  universal  religion. 

The  city  of  Alexandria  represented  in  miniature 
the  world  of  that  distant  age.  In  some  respects  it 
was  a  city  more  cosmopolitan  than  any  other  in  the 
empire,  in  comparison  with  which  even  Rome  was 
provincial.  In  its  population  were  included  large 
numbers  of  Greeks  and  Jews,  Orientals  and  Romans. 
It  had  also  become  one  of  the  great  centres  of  the 
Christian  church.  The  combination  of  these  different 
types  of  religious  thought  stimulated  the  speculative 
mind  to  the  highest  activity.  There  the  Jews  came 
under  the  influence  of  Greek  philosophy ;  the  Greeks 
discerned  in  Judaism  a  moral  force  and  directness  in 
which  heathenism  was  wanting.  Each  was  impelled 
to  the  search  after  a  universal  principle  in  whose  com- 
prehensive grasp  might  be  realized  the  unity  of  all 
things  human  and  divine.  There  was  also  felt  the 
subtle  contagion  of  oriental  theosophy,  with  its  dark 


6b  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

consciousness  of  sin  and  disorder  in  the  world,  with 
its  dualism  between  God  and  some  rival  power  for 
evil,  to  which  the  consciousness  of  sin,  without  the 
full  light  of  redemption,  has  always  and  everywhere 
given  birth. 

No  doubt  there  was  danger  to  the  faith  of  Christian 
thinkers  in  such  a  situation.  The  problem  was  indeed 
a  complex  one  which  the  Greek  theology  in  Alexan- 
dria was  given  to  solve.  To  maintain  the  divine  im- 
manence, and  yet  not  identify  God  with  the  world ;  to 
combat  Gnosticism  and  oriental  tendencies,  and  yet  not 
underrate  the  evil  and  heinousness  of  sin;  to  insist 
upon  the  divine  love  as  the  essence  of  Deity,  and  yet 
enforce  the  judgments  and  punishments  of  sin ;  to  as- 
sert the  superiority  of  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments,  and  yet  do  justice  to  the  divine  reve- 
lation contained  in  Greek  philosophy  ;  to  combat  Jew- 
ish deism  as  an  unworthy  conception  of  God,  to  resist 
the  tendency  to  reduce  Christianity  to  a  ritual  in  imi- 
tation of  the  Jewish  ceremonial  law,  and  yet  not  fail 
to  acknowledge  in  Jewish  history  the  preparation  for  a 
higher  truth ;  to  assert  the  importance  of  intellectual 
culture,  and  yet  to  recognize  the  power  and  value  of 
simple  faith,  —  such  were  the  conditions  under  which 
Greek  theology  was  developed. 

Complex  and  difficult  as  was  the  environment  of  the 
church  in  Alexandria,  yet  this  close  contact  with  hea- 
then thought  in  its  various  forms  and  its  highest  moods 
was  necessary  and  unavoidable,  if  the  Christian  reve- 
lation was  to  be  put  to  the  severest  test,  if  its  essential 
principle  was  to  be  apprehended  in  its  purity  by  the 
intellect  as  well  as  by  the  moral  sentiment,  if  in  a  word 
Christianity  was  to  make  the  conquest  of  the  human 
reason.     What  the  persecution  of  the  church  by  the 


CONFLICT   WITH  HEATHENISM,  37 

Roman  state  was  to  the  simple  lives  of  Christian  peo- 
ple, developing  a  heroism  which  the  world  had  never 
seen  before,  demonstrating  that  no  earthly  force  could 
subdue  the  povver  of  faith,  such  also  was  the  conflict  in 
the  intellectual  sphere  between  heathen  philosophers 
and  Christian  theologians.  Christian  thought,  as  pre- 
sented by  Clement  and  Origen  and  Athanasius,  over- 
came the  polemics  of  their  heathen  antagonists,  and 
brought  forth  into  the  clear  light  of  the  reason  the 
principle  which  bound  heaven  and  earth  together,  and 
formed  the  basis  of  a  universal  religion.  Alexandria, 
it  is  true,  generated  some  of  the  worst  heresies  that 
endangered  the  Christian  faith,  but  it  also  produced  a 
Catholic  theology  in  which  those  heresies  were  met  as 
they  were  nowhere  else  in  the  church.  No  other  writer 
overcame  the  principle  of  Gnosticism  so  completely  as 
Clement  of  Alexandria :  when  Celsus  assaulted  by  ar- 
gument and  by  ridicule  that  which  was  most  distinc- 
tively sacred  in  Christian  belief,  it  was  from  Alexan- 
dria that  the  answer  came  ;  when  Arianism  would 
have  reduced  Christianity  to  a  form  akin  to  heathen 
polytheism,  it  was  Athanasius,  the  Bishop  of  Alexan- 
dria, who  fought  for  the  doctrine  of  the  incarnation, 
and  secured  its  triumph. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  deficiencies  of  Greek 
theology,  it  may  be  safely  averred,  that  until  its  prog- 
ress was  arrested  by  the  mysterious  decline  which  par- 
alyzed all  intellectual  activity  and  freedom,  it  did  not 
succumb  to  the  subtle  spirit  of  heathenism,  nor  adopt 
unwittingly  what  was  foreign  to  the  Christian  idea 
in  Gnostic  or  Manichaean  theosophies,  nor  was  the 
principle  of  redemption  neutralized  by  an  oriental  or 
Buddhist  conception  of  human  sinfulness,  which  di- 
vorced God  from  the  world,  and  left  humanity,  in  its 


38  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

isolation  and  weakness,  a  prey  to  the  encroachments 
of  an  ambitious  priesthood.  These  were  the  evils 
which  befell  the  church,  more  especially  in  the  West, 
where  intellectual  culture  had  come  to  be  disowned  as 
having  no  connection  with  Christian  faith,  where  rea- 
son was  separated  from  feeling  and  piety,  and  philos- 
ophy was  denounced  as  the  parent  of  all  evil. 

Clement  of  Alexandria  may  be  called  the  father  of 
Greek  theology. ^  Of  Pantsenus,  his  predecessor  in  the 
theological  school,  but  little  is  known ;  the  important 
fact  has  been  recorded,  that  he  was  an  adherent  of 
the  Stoic  philosophy,  and  Clement,  who  was  his  pupil, 
bears  witness  to  the  high  value  of  his  teaching.  Very 
few  details  of  the  life  of  Clement  have  been  preserved. 
The  date  of  his  birth  may  be  fixed  about  the  middle 
of  the  second  century,  while  that  of  his  death  is  un- 
known. The  period  of  his  greatest  literary  activity 
was  when  he  presided  over  the  school  at  Alexandria 
(a.  d.  190-203),  and  when  he  must  have  been  in  the 
full  maturity  of  his  powers.  As  to  his  nationality,  he 
was  a  Greek,  possibly  an  Athenian,  and  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Greek  philosophy  and  literature  was  thor- 
ough and  extensive.  The  epithet  "  learned  "  belongs 
to  him  not  merely  in  virtue  of  the  courtesy  which  ex- 
tends it  to  all  the  Fathers  of  the  church ;  apart  from 
their  theology,  his  works  are  valuable  to  the  classical 
student  for  their  numerous  quotations  from  books  no 

1  Sketches  of  Clement's  thought  may  be  found  in  Pressense, 
Histoire  des  trois  premiers  siecles  de  I'e'glise,  t.  iii.  —  L^Hvttoire  du 
dogma  ;  Rltter,  Die  Christliche  Philosophies  i.  300-310  ;  Studien 
und  Kritiken,  1841  ;  Bp.  Kaye,  Clement  of  Alexandria  ;  Freppel, 
Clement  d'Alezandrie.  A  sympathetic  study  of  Clement  is  con- 
tained in  Neander,  Ch.  His.f  vols.  ii.  and  iii.;,  Bohn  ed. 


CLEMENT  OF  ALEXANDRIA.  39 

longer  extant,  and  for  the  light  they  shed  upon  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  ancient  world.  He  had 
traveled  widely  in  search  of  knowledge,  and  after  he 
became  a  Christian  he  studied  the  new  religion  under 
several  masters  before  he  came  under  the  influence  of 
Pantaenus,  and  heard  a  presentation  of  Christian  truth 
which  commended  itself  to  his  reason.  That  which 
attracted  him  in  Christianity  was  its  lofty  ethical 
teaching,  and  the  fruits  which  it  bore  in  the  practical 
transformation  of  the  life.  In  the  character  of  Christ, 
not  in  miracles"  or  prophecy,  did  he  find  the  highest 
evidence  of  His  divine  mission  to  humanity.^ 

We  meet  in  Clement  a  more  emphatic  statement 
than  in  any  other  ancient  father  of  the  universality  of 
the  preparation  in  the  Old  World  for  the  advent  of 
Christ.  As  a  Greek,  it  fell  to  him  to  vindicate  the 
alliance  between  the  Hellenic  philosophy  and  the  new 
religion.  Such  an  alliance  he  does  not  regard  as  call- 
ing for  an  apology;  it  is  a  divine  ordering  of  the 
world  that  Greek  philosophy  should  have  prepared  the 
way  for  Christ,  and  to  doubt  that  it  did  so  would  be 
to  undermine  belief  in  the  possibility  of  a  revelation, 
as  well  as  to  deny  the  providence  of  God.^  Christian- 
ity, if  the  expression  may  be  allowed,  grew  as  directly 
out  of  Greek  philosophy  as  out  of  Hebrew  prophecy. 
The  narrow  conception  that  the  only  prophecy  of 
Christ  is  to  be  found  in  Jewish  anticipations  of  Mes- 
siah, belittles  the  subject  of  the  divine  dealings  with 
humanity.  The  influence  of  "Hellenic  speculation  in 
determining  the  true  nature  of  the  person  of  Christ  is 
not  a  thing  smuggled  surreptitiously  into  the  sphere  of 
Christian  thought,  —  an  alien  element,  to  be  carefully 

1  Cf.  Bp.  Kaye,  Life  and  Writings  of  Clement  of  Alexandria,  p.  3. 

2  Str<m.y  vi.  17. 


40  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

eliminated,  if  we  would  understand  the  original  revela- 
tion in  its  simplicity  and  purity.  It  enters  into  the 
divine  process  of  preparation  for  the  advent  of  Christ 
as  a  constituent  factor ;  it  is  essential  to  a  right  inter- 
pretation of  the  Christian  idea  in  its  widest  and  high- 
est application. 

What  Clement  asserted  so  eloquently  as  of  vital  im- 
portance to  the  understanding  of  the  Christian  faith, 
the  Greek  fathers  who  came  after  him  accepted  as  an 
axiom  without  further  discussion.  The  doctrines  of 
the  incarnation  and  the  trinity,  as  developed  by  Ori- 
gen,  by  Athanasius,  and  the  Cappadocians,  especially 
Gregory  of  Nyssa,  rest  upon  the  alliance  with  Greek 
philosophy,  securely  and  serenely.  In  later  times, 
when  a  meagre,  mechanical  notion  of  divine  revela- 
tion obscured  the  earlier  apprehension  of  its  univer- 
sality, the  argument  for  the  divinity  of  Christ's  person 
came  to  rest  almost  exclusively  upon  Hebrew  prophe- 
cies which  found  in  Him  their  fulfillment,  —  a  method 
which  reached  its  legitimate  result  in  a  return  to  the 
Jewish  deism  from  which  it  had  derived  its  inspiration. 

The  following  passages  from  Clement  show  how 
large  and  free  was  his  conception  of  the  methods  of 
divine  revelation :  — 

"  To  the  Jews  belonged  the  Law,  and  to  the  Greeks  Phi- 
losophy, until  the  Advent,  and  after  that  came  the  universal 
calling  to  be  a  peculiar  people  of  righteousness  tlirough  the 
teaching  which  flows  from  faith,  brought  together  by  one 
Lord,  the  only  God  of  both  Greeks  and  barbarians,  or  rather 
of  the  whole  race  of  men."  ^  "  And  in  general  terms  we 
shall  not  err  in  alleging  that  all  things  necessary  and  profit- 
able for  life  came  to  us  from  God,  and  that  pliilosophy  more 

1  Strom.y  vi.  c.  17.  The  translation  is  tliat  of  the  Ante-Nicene 
Library. 


REVELATION  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY.     41 

especially  was  given  to  the  Greeks  as  a  covenant  peculiar  to 
them,  being,  as  it  is,  a  stepping-stone  to  the  philosophy 
which  is  according  to  Christ."  ^  "  Should  any  one  say  that 
it  was  through  human  understanding  that  philosophy  was 
discovered  by  the  Greeks,  I  find  the  Scriptures  saying  that 
understanding  is  sent  by  God."  ^  "  God  was  the  giver  of 
Greek  philosophy  to  the  Greeks,  by  which  the  Ahnighty  is 
glorified  among  the  Greeks."  ®  "  The  studies  of  philosophy 
therefore,  and  philosophy  itself,  are  aids  in  treating  of  the 
truth."  *  "  Before  the  advent  of  the  Lord,  philosophy  was 
necessaiy  to  the  Greeks  for  righteousness.  And  now  it  be- 
comes conducive  to  piety;  being  a  kind  of  preparatory 
training  to  those  who  attain  to  faith  through  demonstration, 
—  a  schoolmaster  to  bring  the  Hellenic  mind,  as  the  law  the 
Hebrews,  to  Christ."  "^  "By  reflection  and  direct  vision 
those  among  the  Greeks  who  have  philosophized  accurately 
see  God."  ^  "In  the  whole  universe  all  the  parts,  though 
differing  one  from  another,  preserve  their  relation  to  the 
whole.  So  then  the  barbarian  (Jewish)  and  Hellenic  phi- 
losophy has  torn  off  a  fragment  of  eternal  truth  from  the 
theology  of  the  ever-living  Word.  And  he  who  brings  to- 
gether again  the  separate  fragments  and  makes  them  one, 
will,  without  peril,  contemplate  the  perfect  Word,  the  truth." ' 

In  the  second  century  Christianity  was  struggling 
against  the  tendency  felt  in  all  forms  of  religious  and 

1  Strom.,  vi.  c.  8.  ■*  Strom.,  vi.  c.  11. 

2  Strom.,  vi.  c.  8.  5  Strom.,  i.  c.  5. 

8  Strom.,  vi.  c.  5.  6  Strom.,  i.  c.  19. 

''  Strom.,  i.  c.  13.  Clement  often  asserts  that  Greek  philoso- 
phy had  plagiarized  from  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  But  he  takes 
this  ground  when  trying  to  convince  the  Greeks,  who  boasted 
their  philosophy  to  be  sufficient,  that  the  highest  spiritual  truth 
hi  Plato  and  others  had  been  anticipated  long  before.  There  is 
no  real  contradiction  in  Clement's  thought,  however  it  may  ap- 
pear as  such  in  his  language.  His  hip;hest  meaniug  is  clear,  that 
Greek  philosophy  contained  a  direct  divine  revelation. 


42  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

philosophical  thought,  to  banish  God  from  His  crea- 
tion, —  to  maintain  the  divine  transcendence  at  the 
expense  of  an  absolute  divorce  between  God  and  hu- 
manity. The  tendency  sprang  from  a  growing  con- 
sciousness of  sin,  a  conscience  quickened  to  the  per- 
ception of  good  and  evil.  All  interest  in  other  lines 
of  human  research  was  disappearing,  and  philosophy 
began  to  be  characterized  by  an  ethical  purpose  in 
comparison  with  which  all  else  was  unimportant. 

It  is  perhaps  the  one  most  striking  peculiarity  of 
the  religion  of  Christ,  that  it  stimulates  the  keenest 
susceptibility  to  moral  evil,  and  yet  brings  God  close 
to  humanity  in  an  abiding  eternal  relationship.  It 
does  what  no  other  religion  has  been  able  to  do,  —  it 
develops  the  consciousness  of  sin,  and  yet  maintains 
the  consciousness  of  an  actual  redemption  from  sin. 
The  most  complete  illustration  of  the  gospel  was 
given  in  one  short  sentence,  when  it  was  said  of  Christ 
that  He  sat  down  to  eat  with  publicans  and  sinners,  — 
a  picture  it  may  called  of  indwelling  Deity  in  close 
contact  and  communion  with  humanity  stricken  with 
a  sense  of  its  debasement  and  guilt. 

And  yet  in  the  "  fullness  of  time  "  when  Christ  ap- 
peared, the  world  was  witnessing  the  mightiest  transi- 
tion recorded  in  the  spiritual  life  of  man.  The  belief 
in  immanent  Deity  was  slowly  yielding  to  the  concep- 
tion of  a  God  removed  to  an  infinite  distance  from  the 
world  and  from  all  human  interests.  Wherever  we 
look  in  the  second  and  third  centuries,  we  may  see  the 
transition  in  process  of  accomplishment.  To  enter 
upon  its  full  description  is  here  impossible.  It  must 
suffice  to  allude  briefly  to  the  causes  which  initiated 
so  vast  a  revolution,  and  to  the  most  significant  indi- 
cations of  its  progress,  in  order  to  get  the  key  to  the 


TRANSCENDENCE  OF  DEITT.  43 

theology  of  the  incarnation,  as  it  was  presented  by  the 
Greek  fathers,  before  the  world  and  the  church  had 
acquiesced  in  a  change  which  was  to  alter  the  charac- 
ter of  human  civilization. 

The  leading  cause  which  underlies  and  modifies  the 
conception  of  God  is  the  action  of  the  human  con- 
science under  the  conviction  of  sin  and  guilt.  It  was 
in  the  ancient  home  of  the  Aryan  races  that  the  pri- 
meval idea  of  Deity  received  its  profoundest  modifica- 
tion in  the  reaction  of  Buddhism.  In  the  Buddhist 
mind,  the  consciousness  of  evil  was  so  supreme,  as  to 
almost  rob  the  world  of  anything  answering  to  the 
idea  of  God  at  all.  That  which  took  place  in  India 
was  substantially  repeated,  not  long  after,  in  the  pro- 
test of  philosophy  against  Greek  religion  in  the  time  of 
Socrates  and  Plato.  The  religion  of  ancient  Greece 
resembled  that  of  India  in  resting  on  a  pantheistic 
basis,  where  God  and  man  and  the  external  world  are 
hardly  distinguishable  from  each  other.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  Plato  should  have  felt  the  direct  in- 
fluence of  Buddhism,  but  it  is  certain  that  he  was 
moved  by  kindred  motives  to  those  which  had  gener- 
ated it.  In  the  "Timseus"  he  pictures  God  as  the 
passive  Deity  at  an  infinite  distance  in  the  heavens, 
unable  to  come  into  immediate  contact  with  a  world 
of  which  the  very  materials  contain  the  conditions  of 
evil.  We  may  admire,  as  we  study  Plato,  his  high 
moral  conception  of  the  nature  of  God,  while  at  the 
same  time  we  discern  in  him  how  the  quickened  moral 
sense,  when  not  enlightened  by  the  Christian  idea  of 
redemption,  perverts  the  true  relationship  between  God 
and  humanity. 

In  the  subsequent  course  of  Greek  philosophy  may 
be  read,  as  in  a  register  of  man's  spiritual  life,  the 


44  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

records  of  the  variation  of  human  thought  as  it 
studied  the  relation  of  God  to  the  world.  Plato  did 
not  willingly  give  up  the  world  to  absolute  separa- 
tion from  its  Maker:  he  strove  hard  to  overcome 
the  schism  which  his  own  thought  had  created.  But 
^the  tendency  of  his  theory  of  ideas  was  to  reduce  the 
creation  to  a  pale  reflection  of  the  divine  glory,  a  poor 
substitute  for  that  beautiful  vision  which  had  haunted 
the  dreams  of  earlier  Greek  religion.  Aristotle  com- 
bated Plato  in  the  interest  of  redeeming  the  external 
world  from  the  unreality  which  it  tended  to  assume 
in  his  master's  thought.  In  the  religious  estimate  of 
Greek  philosophy,  he  may  be  said  to  have  prepared 
the  way  for  the  Stoic  school,  which  appeared  in  the 
third  century  before  Christ.  The  Stoic  philosophy 
returned  to  the  idea  of  God  from  which  Plato  had  de- 
parted, and  conceived  of  Him  as  indwelling  in  the 
world,  penetrating  everywhere  and  filling  it  with  His 
presence.  The  world  was  thought  to  sustain  the 
same  relation  to  God  as  the  body  to  the  spirit ;  it  was 
directed  and  controlled  by  an  immanent  life  of  whose 
beauty  and  glory  outward  nature  is  the  direct  mani- 
festation, while  the  human  spirit  in  its  moral  capacity 
and  attainments  expressed  the  highest  revelation  of 
the  actual  presence  of  the  divine.  That  such  a  sys- 
tem of  philosophy  as  the  Stoic  should  have  prevailed 
till  the  second  century  after  Christ,  and  on  the  eve  of 
its  decline  should  have  given  birth  to  three  such  men 
as  Seneca,  Epictetus,  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  is  a  cir- 
cumstance, the  importance  of  which  it  is  hardly  pos- 
sible to  overestimate,  when  considering  the  influences 
which  moulded  the  early  teachers  of  Greek  theology. 
But  in  the  second  century  of  the  Christian  era,  the 
tendency  of  thought  was  back  again  to  Plato.     Sto- 


CLEMENTS  IDEA    OF   GOD.  45 

icism  was  failing  to  satisfy  the  dark  mood  of  an  age 
in  which  the  sense  of  sin  was  once  more  becoming  the 
supreme  motive  underlying  all  speculative  thought. 
The  world  was  no  longer  what  it  had  been.  The  ho- 
rizon seemed  dark  and  forbidding  to  those  who  sought 
to  read  the  future  destinies  of  mankind.  They  saw 
everywhere  the  presence  of  gigantic  evils,  and  no 
power  at  work  adequate  to  redress  them.  Even  to 
many  Christian  thinkers  it  required  too  much  faith  to 
believe  that  the  world  as  they  saw  it  had  been  re- 
deemed. Hence  the  Gnostics  reverted  to  Plato,  with 
his  idea  of  a  distant  passive  Deity,  and  gave  up  the 
world  to  destruction,  with  the  exception  of  a  chosen 
few  in  whom  kinship  to  God  was  sufficiently  strong 
to  enable  them  to  secure  salvation.  Neo-Platonism^ 
had  its  forerunner  in  Plutarch  (a.  d.  120),  who  by 
one  of  the  strange  perversions  which  so  often  accom- 
pany the  revival  of  an  earlier  thought,  saw  in  Plato  a 
principle  for  the  renewal  of  the  old  mythology  which 
Plato  had  done  so  much  to  bring  into  discredit. 

Such  was  the  spirit  of  the  age  when  Clement  was 
aiming  to  commend  Christianity  to  earnest  and  inquir- 
ing minds.  That  he  was  to  some  extent  influenced  by 
the  current  sentiments  of  his  time  it  is  sufficient  to 
admit.  We  should  be  misled,  however,  as  to  his  real 
meaning  and  purpose,  if  we  sought  only  in  his  writings 
for  his  formal  concurrence  with  prevailing  ideas.  Like 
Justin,  he  sometimes  speaks  of  God  as  the  absolute 
and  the  unknown,  or  even  as  the  incomprehensible, 
whose  life  is  sufficient  in  itself  without  the  creation. 
But  he  has  no  real  interest  in  concessions  like  these  to 
the  fashion  of  the  age  ;  his  higher  utterances  contra- 
dict and  disprove  them.  He  is  mainly  concerned  in 
enforcing  the  immanence  of  God.     Christ  is  every- 


46  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

where  presented  by  him  as  Deity  indwelling  in  the 
world.  The  world  is  viewed  as  part  of  an  organic 
whole,  moving  on  to  some  exalted  destiny  in  the  har- 
mony of  the  divine  order.  Humanity  has  its  life  and 
being  in  Christ,  to  whom  also  it  is  constitutionally  re- 
lated ;  the  whole  human  race,  not  any  elect  portion 
only,  is  included  under  the  operation  of  grace  as  well 
as  of  law  ;  all  human  history  is  unified  and  consecrated 
by  the  visible  traces  of  divine  revelation. 

Less  than  any  of  the  fathers  is  Clement  tempted  to 
indulge  in  speculations  about  the  mode  of  the  divine 
existence.  He  is  concerned  with  realities,  not  with 
mere  speculative  opinions.  He  attempts  no  formal 
explanation  of  how  Deity  in  His  immanence  is  to  be 
reconciled  with  the  transcendent  and  unknown  essence 
of  God.  But  there  is  no  qualification  in  his  belief, 
that  Christ  is  in  the  fullest  sense  God  indwelling  in 
the  world  and  in  humanity.  Language  seems  poor  and 
inadequate  as  he  struggles  with  it  in  order  to  assert 
and  illustrate  the  workings  of  the  present  God. 

Nor  does  Clement  formally  endeavor  to  demon- 
strate the  connection  between  the  historic  personality 
of  Jesus,  and  the  Deity  whom  he  held  to  have  been 
incarnate  in  Him.  This  is  the  assumption  which  un- 
derlies his  thought,  that  which  he  takes  for  granted, 
because,  in  his  own  exuberant  faith,  he  feels  no  need 
of  labored  demonstration.  But  the  connection,  as  it 
exists  in  his  mind,  may  be  clearly  traced.  He  does 
not  rely  upon  the  display  of  omnipotent  power,  as  seen 
in  the  miracles  of  the  historic  Christ,  to  confirm  His 
divine  character,  but  upon  the  life  of  the  church  of 
which  He  is  the  perennial  source,  in  the  transforma- 
tion which  His  name  still  works  in  human  character, 
in  the  self-sacrifice  which  is  the  reproduction  of  His 


THE  INDWELLING    GOdA^  47 

example,  in  the  boundless  hope  which  has  4W  spring 
in  the  love  and  devotion  which  He  still  continues  to 
inspire,  in  the  spiritual  illumination  of  a  soul  who. 
acknowledged  Him  as  its  master. 

Since  Christ  is  the  indwelling  God,  His  incarnation 
is  not  a  thing  new  or  strange,  an  abrupt  break  in  the 
continuity  of  man's  moral  history;  it  had  not  been 
decreed  in  the  divine  counsels,  in  order  to  avoid  some 
impending  catastrophe  which  suddenly  confronted  or 
threatened  to  disappoint  the  divine  purpose  ;  it  was 
not  merely  an  historical  incident  by  which  He  came 
into  the  world  from  a  distance,  and,  having  done  His 
work,  retired  again  from  it.  He  was  in  the  world  be- 
fore He  came  in  the  flesh,  and  was  preparing  the 
world  for  His  visible  advent.  As  indwelling  Deity, 
He  was  to  a  certain  extent  already  universally  incar- 
nated, as  the  light  that  lighteth  every  man,  the  light 
shining  in  the  darkness,  the  light  and  life  of  men  in 
every  age.  Hence  the  prophecies  of  his  advent  enter 
into  the  organic  process  of  human  history,  and  in  the 
spiritual  life  of  man  may  be  read  the  f oreshadowings 
of  Him  who  was  the  crown  and  completion  of  human- 
ity, the  fulfillment  of  the  whole  creation. 

Because  Deity  indwelt  in  himaanity,  and  the  human 
reason  partook,  by  its  very  nature,  of  that  which  was 
divine,  Clement  was  forced  to  see  in  the  highest  prod- 
ucts of  the  reason  the  fruit  of  divine  revelation.  He 
makes  no  distinction  between  natural  and  revealed  re- 
ligion, between  what  man  discovers  and  God  reveals. 
All  that  is  true  and  well  said  in  Greek  philosophy  was 
as  truly  given  by  divine  revelation,  as  was  the  moral 
truth  proclaimed  by  Jewish  legislators  and  prophets. 
The  higher  activities  of  human  thought  and  reflection 
are  only  the  process  by  which  the  revelation  of  truth 


48  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

is  conveyed  to  man,^  and  inspiration  is  the  God-given 
insight  which  enables  men  to  read  aright  the  truth 
which  God  reveals. 

The  doctrine  of  indwelling  Deity  —  of  the  Logos, 
as  constitutionally  or  organically  related  to  the  human 
soul  —  may  be  called  the  theological  principle  in  the 
teaching  of  Clement.  Closely  connected  with  it,  and 
indeed  the  necessary  inference  from  it,  is  his  doctrine 
of  man  as  made  in  the  divine  image.  No  other  writer 
in  the  ancient  church  has  presented  this  truth  with  so 
much  clearness,  or  so  insisted  upon  its  importance  as 
the  ground  of  faith  in  God  or  of  hope  for  man.  With 
Clement  it  is  the  point  of  departure  in  treating  of  sin 
and  of  redemption,  —  the  key-note,  it  may  be  called, 
of  his  anthropology.^  The  image  of  God  in  man  is  a 
spiritual  endowment  of  humanity  which  is  capable  of 
expressing  the  inmost  essence  or  character  of  God,  — 
it  is  a  moral  or  spiritual  image,  containing,  as  it  were, 
in  the  germ,  the  highest  and  divinest  qualities  as  they 
exist  in  God.  It  is  that  in  the  Son,  which  comes  from 
being  begotten  by  the  Father.  Because  man's  spir- 
itual constitution  is  made  after  a  divine  type,  it  be- 
comes the  law  of  his  being  to  fulfill  its  possibilities, 
and  to  rise  to  the  full  resemblance  to  God.  The  image 
of  God  in  every  man  constitutes  the  warrant  for  be- 
lieving that  he  may  rise  from  the  possibility  into  the 
actuality,  that  the  image  may  develop  into  a  living  and 
speaking  resemblance.  It  is  because  man  is  made  in 
the  divine  image  that  his  nature  responds  to  the  call 
of  God,  and  his  conscience  reechoes  the  commandments 
of  God.  But  the  law  of  God,  according  to  such  a 
view,  is  not  conceived  as  a  code  of  external  command- 

^  Exhort,  c.  vi.  ;  Strom.,  i.  c.  19  ;  also,  i.  c.  5. 
3  Exhort.,  c.  X.  J  c.  xii. 


THE  NATURE   OF  MAN.  49 

ments,  —  it  is  a  law  written  within  the  heart.  Chris- 
tianity, as  compared  with  Judaism,  is  the  passing  from 
the  stage  where  the  law  is  presented  from  without  on 
external  tables  of  stone,  to  that  in  which  it  is  discerned 
as  written  within  man's  nature ;  and  when  thus  rec- 
ognized, the  hard  sense  of  duty  gives  place  to  willing 
aspiration,  and  the  attainment  of  character  is  set  over 
against  the  fulfillment  of  formal  ordinances.  Such  is 
the  spirit  of  the  new  covenant  in  Christ  as  St.  Paul 
discerned  it,  as  the  prophet  Jeremiah  described  it,  in 
the  transition  hour  of  Jewish  history :  "  Behold,  saith 
the  Lord,  I  will  make  a  new  covenant  with  them  in 
those  days  :  I  will  put  my  laws  in  their  hearts,  and  in 
their  minds  wUl  I  write  them,  and  their  sins  and  in- 
iquities will  I  remember  no  more." 

Clement  does  not  speculate  on  the  nature  or  the 
origin  of  evil.  He  knows  nothing  of  the  later  dogma 
of  the  fall  of  man  in  Adam,  nor  of  Adam  as  the  fed- 
eral representative  of  mankind ;  nor  does  it  seem  as 
if  such  opinions  would  have  commended  themselves 
to  his  mind  as  explaining  the  nature  or  the  source  of 
human  sinfulness.  He  sees,  rather,  in  Christ  the  nor- 
mal man,  the  true  head  and  centre  of  humanity ;  and 
in  treating  of  sin  and  its  ravages,  never  lets  go  his 
hold  on  the  truth  that  man  is  constituted  after  the  di- 
vine image.  Hence  he  regards  the  will  as  free  to  fol- 
low out  the  divine  purpose  which  is  the  law  of  man's 
being.  The  freedom  of  the  will,  which  Clement  held 
in  common  with  all  the  Greek  fathers,  was  not  a  tem- 
porary expedient  in  their  thought  in  order  to  meet  the 
fatalism  of  Gnostic  theories  ;  it  was  a  necessary  prin- 
ciple flowing  from  the  importance  assigned  to  the 
primary  truth  that  man  was  created  in  the  divine  im- 
age. However  much  that  image  might  have  been 
4 


50  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

obscured  by  human  sinfulness,  it  still  existed  with  its 
original  endowment,  and  the  work  of  Christ  had  con- 
sisted in  revealing  man  to  himself,  in  making  known 
to  him  the  divine  constitution  of  his  being,  as  well  as 
in  preseiiting  the  nature  and  character  of  God.  The 
freedom  of  the  will  was  not  the  freedom  of  a  being 
independent  of  God  or  detached  from  Him,  but  rather 
allied  to  Him  by  his  inmost  constitution,  and  there- 
fore retaining  the  capacity,  through  all  the  vicissitudes 
of  his  career,  of  fulfilling  his  appointed  destiny.^ 

Like  others  of  the  Fathers  who  had  come  under  the 
influence  of  Hellenic  thought,  Clement  regarded  ig- 
norance as  the  mother  of  sin,  and  finds  in  revelation, 
considered  as  light,  the  divine  remedy.  But  he  does 
not  view  ignorance  as  the  only  difficulty  to  be  over- 

^  It  was  not  till  Augustine  had  fallen  back  into  the  bondage  of 
an  essentially  Gnostic  or  Manichaean  fatalism,  and  accepted  the 
principle  of  an  arbitrary  election  common  to  all  the  Gnostic  sys- 
tems, that  he  gave  up  the  freedom  of  the  will.  His  denial  of 
freedom  was,  indeed,  a  consequence  of  his  doctrine  of  election, 
but  beneath  this  notion  of  election  lay  the  idea  which  conditioned 
all  Gnostic  speculation,  that  humanity  had  become  separated  from 
God,  and,  in  its  independence  and  isolation,  needed  the  aid  of  a 
power  foreign  to  itself  in  order  to  its  restoration  ;  or,  in  theolog- 
ical language,  the  image  of  God  forfeited  by  Adam  must  be  re- 
stored by  an  external  creative  act,  as  in  baptism.  A  recent 
writer  has  remarked  on  the  impressiveness  of  the  fact  that  the 
Greeks  were  never  embarrassed  as  were  the  Latins  by  questions 
relating  to  free  will  and  necessity.  The  fact  does  not  lose  its 
impressiveness,  though  no  longer  difficult  to  understand,  when  it 
is  remembered  that  the  Greek  theologians  regarded  the  image  of 
God  in  man  as  an  inalienable  possession,  and  therefore  regarded 
God  and  man  as  bound  together  by  an  organic  tie  ;  while  the 
Latins  regarded  mankind  as  having,  through  the  fall  of  Adam, 
lost  its  spiritual  kinship  to  God,  while  yet  remaining  susceptible 
to  an  omnipotent  influence  capable  of  bearing  down  all  finite 
opposition.     Cf.  Maine's  Ancient  LaWf  p.  342. 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE,     61 

come  in  the  redemptive  process ;  there  is  also  in  man 
the  inability  to  follow  righteousness,  which  springs 
from  the  weakness  or  disinclination  of  the  will.  Ig- 
norance of  the  right,  or  the  unwillingness  to  foUow  it, 
these  are  the  two  obstacles  to  be  removed  in  order 
that  man  may  rise  to  the  free  imitation  of  God,  and 
share  in  that  humanity  which  has  been  deified  in 
Christ. 

The  history  of  man's  redemption  from  sin  becomes, 
according  to  Clement's  conception,  the  education  of 
the  human  race,  under  the  tuition  of  indwelling 
Deity.^  The  divine  teacher,  whom  he  has  portrayed 
in  his  work  called  the  "  Instructor,"  is,  he  teUs  U3 
with  constant  reiteration,  no  other  than  God  Himself. 
One  can  imagine  that  he  had  in  view,  as  he  wrote  it, 
the  prophetic  language  of  Plato  :  "  We  must  wait  for 
one,  be  it  a  God  or  a  God-inspired  man,  who  will 
teach  us  our  religious  duties,  and  take  away  the  dark- 
ness from  our  eyes."  But  the  reality,  in  Clement's 
view,  surpassed  the  prophecy  and  the  anticipation. 
Such  a  divine  teacher  had  come  in  the  flesh  and 
dwelt  amongst  us  in  visible  form  ;  but  in  his  spiritual, 
his  most  real  presence  as  the  essential  Christ,  He  re- 
mained here  forever  as  the  teacher  of  humanity  ;  nor 
had  there  been  a  time  since  the  world  began  when  He 
was  not  present  to  superintend  the  education  of  the 
race.  It  was  He  who  spoke  through  Moses  and  the 
prophets,  and  it  was  He  who  spoke  in  Greek  philoso- 
phy. In  the  progressive  education  of  humanity.  He 
even  gave  the  sun  and  moon  to  be  worshiped,  in 
order  that  men  might  not  be  atheistical;  in  order, 
also,  that  they  might  rise  through  the  lower  worship 
to  something  higher.^  He  is  not  the  teacher  of  a  few 
^  Pcedag.,  i.  c.  9.  *  Strom.,  vi.  c.  14. 


52  THE    GREEK  THEOLOGY, 

only,  in  some  favored  time  or  place,  but  He  comes  to 
all,  at  all  times  and  everywhere.  He  is  the  Saviour 
of  all,  for  all  men  are  His  ;  "  some  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  what  He  is  to  them,  others  not  as  yet ;  some 
as  friends,  others  as  faithful  servants ;  others  barely 
as  servants."  ^  As  their  teacher,  He  educates  the 
enlightened  by  the  inward  intuition  of  truth,  the 
believers  by  good  hopes,  and  those  who  are  hard  of 
heart  by  corrective  discipline  through  operations  that 
can  be  felt. 

The  idea  of  life  as  essentially  an  education  under 
the  guidance  of  immanent  Deity  implies  a  divine  con 
stitution  in  man  formed  to  receive  the  divine  teaching. 
The  idea  of  education  involves  capacity  and  ability  in 
the  pupil,  and  also  an  innate  disposition  to  receive  and 
follow  instruction.  To  educate  is  to  educe  and  de- 
velop the  powers  already  implanted  in  the  soul.  The 
teaching  of  the  divine  Instructor  follows  the  analogy 
of  human  methods,  —  it  appeals  to,  it  evokes  and 
strengthens,  the  divine  that  is  in  man,  those  instincts 
of  the  soul  which  yearn  after  all  that  is  true  or  beau- 
tiful or  good.  The  gracious  and  benign  Instructor  of 
humanity  possesses  unwearied  patience,  and  in  accom- 
plishing His  task  has  at  His  disposal  all  the  resources 
of  God.  His  methods  vary  with  the  need  of  the 
pupil.  He  overcomes  ignorance  by  setting  forth  the 
truth;  He  meets  unwillingness  to  follow  and  obey 
the  truth,  by  threatening,  by  censure,  by  discipline,  by 
chastisement.  He  prefers  the  gentler  methods,  but 
never  hesitates  to  follow  severer  measures  when  gentle 
ones  do  not  avail. 

Clement  has  much  to  say  upon  the  function  of  fear 
as  a  motive  to  righteous  action.     He  regards  it  as  in- 
1  Strom.f  vii.  c.  2. 


THE  PURPOSE   OF  FEAR.  63 

dispensable  in  tliis  lifelong  process  of  redemption 
from  the  power  of  sin,  but  he  also  refuses  to  con- 
sider fear  apart  from  the  work  of  the  instructor. 
Fear  is  not  a  quality  begotten  in  man  in  separate- 
ness  and  isolation  from  God,  for  in  his  view  no  hu- 
man soul  can  escape  the  divine  tuition.  It  is  rather 
a  necessary  part  of  the  divine  method  of  education, 
that  fear  should  be  implanted  in  man  in  order  to  his 
protection  from  the  evils  that  assault  and  hurt  the 
soul,  as  weU  as  from  those  that  endanger  the  body. 
But  if  we  may  so  speak,  the  ultimate  objective  ground 
of  this  saving  fear  in  spiritual  things  lies  in  no  being, 
no  condition  of  time  or  place,  save  God  Himself.  God 
alone  inspires  the  fear,  and  always  for  a  disciplinary 
purpose.^  In  whatever  forms  the  fear  may  be  clothed 
by  the  human  imagination,  the  only  reality  to  be  truly 
feared  is  God ;  and  he  has  read  rightly  the  true  mean- 
ing of  fear,  who,  in  the  words  of  St.  Paul,  works  out 
his  own  salvation  in  fear  and  trembling,  because  it  is 
God  that  is  working  in  him,  to  wiU  and  to  do  of  His 
good  pleasure. 

The -Instructor  has  not  only  fear  at  his  disposal  as 
a  means  of  education,  but  He  inflicts  judgments  and 
penalties.  The  unbeliever  who  wiU  not  heed  exhor- 
tation, or  the  believing  Christian  who  still  cherishes 
the  inclination  to  sin,  must  experience  the  severity 
of  God.  The  judgment  is  not  conceived  as  the  final 
assize  of  the  universe  in  some  remote  future,  but  as 
a  present  continuous  element  in  the  process  of  hu- 
man education.  The  purpose  of  the  judgment,  as  of 
all  the  divine  penalties,  is  always  remedial.^  Judg- 
ment enters  into  the  work  of  redemption  as  a  con- 

1  Strom.,  iL  c.  7;  Pcedag,,  i.  9. 
^  Strom.,  i.  c.  27  ;  iv.  c.  24. 


54  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

structive  factor.  God  does  not  teach  in  order  that 
He  may  finally  judge,  but  He  judges  in  order  that 
He  may  teach.  The  censures,  the  punishments,  the 
judgment  of  God  are  a  necessary  element  of  the  edu- 
cational process  in  the  life  of  humanity,  and  the  mo- 
tive which  underlies  them  is  goodness  and  love.  They 
are  at  the  disposal  of  a  divine  Instructor,  who  or- 
ders the  course  of  the  external  world  for  a  benefi- 
cent end,  who  has  attested  His  love  by  coming  into 
the  world  and  dying  for  men.^  There  is  no  essential 
difference  between  justice  and  goodness  (as  Marcion 
had  taught)  ;  justice  resolves  itself  into  love  ;  even 
the  divine  anger  —  if  it  is  proper  to  so  term  it  —  is 
full  of  love  to  man,  for  whose  sake  God  became  in- 
carnate ;  "  to  Him  alone  it  belongs  to  consider,  and 
His  care  it  is  to  see  to  the  way  and  the  manner  in 
which  the  life  of  men  may  be  made  more  healthy."  ^ 

The  idea  of  life  as  an  education  under  the  immedi- 
ate superintendence  of  a  divine  Instructor,  who  is 
God  Himself  indwelling  in  the  world,  constitutes  the 
central  truth  in  Clement's  theology.  Here  lies  his 
answer  to  the  diverse  Gnostic  heresies  with  which  his 
age  abounded.  To  Marcion  and  others  denouncing 
the  heathen  world  before  Christ  came  as  under  the 
dominion  of  demons,  and  as  only  ripening  for  destruc- 
tion, Clement  virtually  replies  that  the  divine  In- 
structor had  himself  been  speaking  to  the  heathens, 
through  their  own  recognized  teachers,  their  poets 
and  philosophers,  by  exhortations  to  the  pursuit  after 
righteousness;  that  these  utterances,  however  imper- 
fect, appealed  to  a  humanity  made  in  God's  like- 
ness, and  endowed  with  a  desire  to  reach  forth  after 
the  divine.  To  Marcion,  stiU  further  sharply  dis- 
1  Paedag.^  i.  c.  12.  «  PcBdag.y  i.  c.  12. 


CLEMENT  AS  AN  APOLOGIST,  bb 

tinguishing  between  justice  and  love,  and  discarding 
the  Old  Testament  and  Jewish  religion,  because  in 
them  justice  appears  as  the  ruling  principle,  Clement 
replies  that  justice  is  but  another  form  or  manifesta- 
tion of  the  divine  love,  designed  to  act  upon  those 
who  are  in  the  lower  stages  of  the  redemptive  pro- 
cess ;  that  the  judgments  of  God,  which  are  in  all 
the  world,  are  purifying  the  spiritual  atmosphere,  and 
adapting  the  earthly  environment  of  man  to  his  spir- 
itual life.i  Against  those,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
saw  in  Christianity  only  the  continuation  of  Jewish 
religion,  as  in  Ebionism,  or  the  pseudo  -  Clementine 
writings,  Clement,  while  doing  full  justice  to  the 
principle  of  historical  and  spiritual  continuity  which 
binds  together  the  two  dispensations,  asserts  their 
difference  by  showing  that  He  who  spoke  through 
Jewish  prophets  had  in  the  fullness  of  time  appeared 
as  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  and  given  to  men  to 
know  the  truth,  which  in  Judaism  was  but  faintly 
discerned,  and  enabled  man,  through  Christ,  to  rise 
to  the  imitation  of  God,  to  the  contemplation  of  Deity 
in  His  inmost  nature.  In  opposition  to  the  tendency 
which  showed  itself  in  all  the  Gnostic  systems  to  divide 
the  human  family  into  fixed  classes,  the  elect  and  the 
non-elect,  separated  by  impassable  barriers,  Clement 
emphasized  the  spiritual  oneness  of  humanity,  its  ac- 
tual redemption  as  a  whole  in  Christ,  while  each  indi- 
vidual is  necessarily  related  to  God  in  virtue  of  his 
constitution  in  the  divine  image.  The  idea  of  a  dis- 
tant Deity  which  underlies  all  the  Gnostic  theosophies, 
—  a  God  outside  the  framework  of  all  human  things, 
and  incapable  of  communicating  Himself  to  human- 
ity, —  is  met  by  the  idea  of  God  as  indwelling  in  the 
1  PcBdag.,  i.  c  12. 


56  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY, 

world,  a  real  and  continuous  presence  of  the  Word 
made  flesh,  who  is  one  with  God,  and  who  is  God. 
The  Gnostic  conception  of  the  world  as  an  accident, 
in  its  nature  evil,  only  by  the  renunciation  of  which 
a  few  rise  to  salvation,  is  everywhere  contradicted  in 
Clement's  thought,  by  the  conception  of  the  world 
as  organized  throughout  in  accordance  with  a  moral 
principle,  and  as  lending  itself  to  the  higher  inter- 
ests of  man.  Salvation  is  not  a  physical  process,  but 
an  ethical  growth,  through  union  with  God;  divine 
knowledge  is  no  mere  speculative  insight  into  the 
origin  of  things,  but  an  ever-growing  perception  of 
the  true  character  of  God,  as  it  is  revealed  in  Christ. 
Another  ruling  idea  among  the  Gnostics,  that  in  the 
process  of  redemption  God  remains  passive  and  un- 
concerned, an  idea  which  also  lay  at  the  root  of  all 
oriental  theosophy,  and  at  a  later  time  became  influ- 
ential in  Neo-Platonic  thought,  is  met  in  Clement's 
theology  by  the  truth,  to  advocate  which  was  the 
object  of  all  his  writings,  that  God  Himself  initiates 
and  indwells  in  the  process  of  redemption;  that  God 
alone  is  the  immanent  force  acting  directly  or  im- 
mediately within  humanity,  dispensing  with  the  neces- 
sity for  mediators  in  heaven  or  in  earth. 

The  doctrine  of  a  sacrificial  expiation  for  sin  as 
commonly  understood  finds  no  place  in  Clement's  view 
of  redemption.  There  is  no  necessity  that  God  should 
be  reconciled  with  humanity,  for  there  is  no  schism 
in  the  divine  nature  between  love  and  justice  which 
needs  to  be  overcome  before  love  can  go  forth  in  free 
and  full  forgiveness.  The  idea  that  justice  and  love 
are  distinct  attributes  of  God,  differing  widely  in 
their  operation,  —  a  doctrine  first  propounded  in  all  its 
rigor  by  Marcion,  —  is  regarded  by  Clement  as  having 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  ATONEMENT.       57 

its  origin  in  a  mistaken  conception  of  their  nature. 
Justice  and  love  are  in  reality  one  and  the  same  attri- 
bute, or,  to  speak  from  the  point  of  view  which  distin- 
guishes them,  God  is  most  loving  when  He  is  most 
just,  and  most  just  when  He  is  most  loving.  Love 
constitutes  the  essential  quality  of  God ;  not  the  love 
which  in  its  inferior  human  manifestations  appears  as 
an  indulgent,  weak  affection;  but  love  in  its  highest 
sense,  as  that  in  God  which  seeks  the  perfection  of  all 
His  creatures,  and  follows  them  with  chastisements 
for  the  insurement  of  its  end. 

In  the  redemptive  work  of  Christ,  Clement  sees  no 
readjustment  or  restoration  of  a  broken  relationship 
between  God  and  humanity,  but  rather  the  revelation 
of  a  relationship  which  had  always  existed,  indestruc- 
tible in  its  nature,  obscured  but  not  obliterated  by 
human  ignorance  and  sin.  Humanity  in  the  light 
of  the  incarnation  appears  as  constitutionally  allied 
with  its  Maker,  as  in  its  inmost  being  lovable  and 
therefore  loved  by  God.  Truly  to  know  Him  who  in 
love  guides  men  to  the  life  that  is  best,  carries  with  it 
the  recognition  of  duty  and  the  obligation  of  obedi- 
ence. The  forgiveness  of  sin  comes  as  by  a  spiritual 
law  to  those  who  respond  to  the  divine  Teacher  speak- 
ing within  the  heart.  In  the  life  and  especially  the 
death  of  Christ  lies  the  evidence  of  God's  identifica- 
tion with  man ;  the  incarnation  is  in  itself  the  atone- 
ment by  which  God  reconciles  the  world  unto  Himself. 
God  in  Christ  is  seen  sharing  all  that  is  darkest  and 
most  bitter  in  human  experience,  in  order  to  the  su- 
preme manifestation  of  His  love.^ 

According  to  Clement,  faith  is  the  inward  response 
of  a  soul  constituted  for  the  truth  ;  it  is  the  spiritual 
^  Posdag.,  i.  cc.  6,  8. 


58  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

vision  by  which  spiritual  truth  is  disceraed,  corre- 
sponding in  the  sphere  of  spiritual  things  to  the  eye 
of  the  body  in  the  world  of  external  things.^  It  may 
be  weak  in  its  first  ventures,  but  it  grows  stronger 
and  clearer  under  the  divine  tuition  ;  its  tendency  in 
the  matured  Christian  is  to  pass  over  into  that  knowl- 
edge which  is  the  absolute  certainty  of  the  things  re- 
vealed,—  the  knowledge  (Gnosis)  of  St.  Paul  when 
he  said,  "  I  know  in  whom  I  have  believed."  In  this 
consciousness  of  the  soul  lies  the  principle  of  certitude. 
Back  to  it  must  be  referred  for  final  sanction,  the 
teachings  of  philosophers,  of  apostles,  and  prophets. 
Clement  admits  no  antithesis  between  faith  and  knowl- 
edge, between  reason  and  revelation  ;  knowledge  en- 
ters into  faith  as  one  of  its  constituent  elements  ;  ^  rea- 
son and  reflection  are  the  avenues  through  which  the 
divine  revelation  comes.  What  is  called  "culture'* 
has  therefore  a  close  relationshij)  to  faith, ^  and  human 
knowledge  in  all  departments  of  inquiry  is  necessary 
for  the  comprehension  of  the  Scriptures.*  As  Clement 
recognizes  no  schism  in  the  divine  nature  between  jus- 
tice and  love,  so  neither  is  there  an  antagonism  be- 
tween the  faculties  of  the  human  soul.  Those  are 
wrong  who  make  faith  an  exceptionally  supernatural 
gift,  as  if  it  were  sufficient  in  itself  apart  from  the  in- 
tellect or  reason ;  faith  in  its  highest  aspect  is  truly 
natural,  springing  from  the  endowment  of  our  consti- 
tution with  God's  image.  But  if  Clement  exalts  what 
some  have  called  the  human  element  in  religion  and 
revelation,  he  does  not  fall  into  the  error  of  thinking 
that  man  originates  a  revelation,  or  evolves  the  truth 

^  Pcedag.,  i.  c.  6. 

2  Pcedag.,  i.  c.  6  ;  Strmn.y  i.  c.  8  ;  also  vii.  c.  10  ;  and  ii.  c.  4, 

8  Strom.y  i.  c.  6.  *  Strom.y  i.  c.  9. 


REASON  AND  SCRIPTURE,  59 

by  some  internal  process  apart  from  God;  for  he 
cannot  conceive  of  man  except  as  under  a  continu- 
ous divine  influence,  under  an  education  which  binds 
him  closely  to  those  objective  facts  in  human  history 
through  which  the  divine  Instructor  speaks  to  the 
reason,  above  all  to  the  supreme  historic  fact  of  the 
incarnation  of  the  Word.  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
Clement  attaches  the  highest  importance  to  the  Scrip- 
tures both  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments ;  he  has 
grasped  the  principle  which  makes  the  Bible  to  be  the 
word  of  God ;  everywhere  he  sees  in  the  written  Word 
the  traces  of  the  divine  Instructor,  exhorting  and 
teaching,  reproving  and  correcting,  disciplining  men 
by  judgments  and  punishments,  presenting  Himself 
in  the  body  as  the  consummate  model  of  life,  using 
all  the  events  of  life  as  the  instruments  of  that  spir- 
itual education  whose  end  is  conformity  to  His  own 
likeness. 

But  Clement's  use  of  Scripture  is  also  in  harmony 
with  the  principle  that  all  authority  for  spiritual  truth 
lies  in  its  last  analysis,  within  the  consciousness  of 
man.  He  does  not  adduce  scriptural  proof  as  having 
an  independent  value  for  the  support  of  tenets  obnox- 
ious to  the  reason,  which  must  be  received  if  at  all  on 
evidence  external  to  the  reason.  Although  he  has 
given  no  formal  definition  of  inspiration,  it  is  clear 
that  he  regards  it  as  having  the  same  general  charac- 
ter in  the  sacred  writers  that  it  has  among  the  best 
of  Greek  philosophers ;  ^  it  is  no  arbitrary  action  of 
God  upon  the  human  faculties,  but  rather  the  high 
exhibition  of  that  capacity  with  which  the  human  con- 
stitution is  endowed  in  virtue  of  its  divine  affiliation, 
and  by  which  is  discerned  the  revelation  which  God  is 
1  Strom.,  i.  c.  13  ;  Ibid.  vi.  c.  17. 


60  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

always  making  to  the  world ;  ^  in  its  highest  action  it 
still  corresponds  in  principle,  however  it  may  differ  in 
degree,  with  the  humblest  insight  of  faith.^  Hence  the 
verification  of  Christian  truth  is  dependent  upon  no 
line  of  hierarchical  descent;  the  apostles  are  to  be 
revered  and  followed,  not  so  much  because  they  were 
apostles,  but  because  and  in  so  far  as  they  have  pene- 
trated into  the  divine  treasures  of  the  incarnate  Word ; 
the  true  successors  of  the  apostles^  are  they  who  like 
them  live  perfectly  in  accordance  with  the  highest 
reason. 

In  his  relation  toward  heresy  the  position  of  Clem- 
ent differs  greatly  from  the  attitude  of  the  Roman 
church  in  his  own  day,  or  that  of  the  later  degenerate 
church  of  the  East.  Although  he  lived  in  the  centre 
from  which  most  of  the  heresies  proceeded,  and  was 
familiar  with  them  in  their  worst  forms,  yet  such  is 
his  faith  in  the  power  and  invincibleness  of  the  truth, 
that  he  believes  in  the  freest  examination,  and  boldly 
urges  upon  the  heretics  themselves  the  necessity  for  a 
deeper  study  of  the  faith  as  the  remedy  for  false  opin- 
ions. He  does  not  fall  back  upon  a  creed  or  rule  of 
faith  to  be  received  on  the  external  authority  of  the 
church  or  of  tradition ;  he  does  not  aj^peal  to  any  tri- 
bunal to  cut  off  the  heretics  from  the  communion  of 
the  faithful;  he  does  not  denounce  them  in  extrava- 
gant language  in  order  to  show  a  becoming  horror  for 
their  tenets.  From  some  of  his  allusions  to  the  here- 
tics, it  appears  that  he  regarded  them  as  men  earnest 
and  sincere  in  the  pursuit  of  truth.  When  those  out- 
side of  the  church  urge  the  diversity  of  opinion  within 
its  ranks  as  an  argument  against  joining  the  Christian 

1  Str(m.y  i.  c.  19. 

*  Strom.,  i.  c.  4 ;  Ibid.  c.  9.  *  Strom.,  vi.  c.  13. 


CLEMENTS   TREATMENT  OF  HERESY.       61 

communion,  he  replies  that  there  are  many  sects  in 
philosophy,  and  yet  one  does  not  refuse  for  that  reason 
to  philosophize  ;  that  there  are  many  opposite  opinions 
in  medicine,  and  yet  one  does  not  decline  to  call  in  a 
physician.^  Heresies  call  for  a  deeper  and  more 
searching  inquiry,  they  entail  a  greater  labor  on  the 
seeker  for  truth,  but  for  this  very  reason  they  are  aids 
to  the  discovery  of  the  truth.^  As  to  the  heretics 
themselves,  if  their  errors  proceed  from  vanity  or  self- 
will,  or  any  other  evil  root,  the  remedy  lies  with  the 
divine  Instructor,  the  living  present  Christ,  whose 
discipline  and  chastisements  alone  can  wean  them 
from  their  evil  state  to  the  knowledge  of  Himself.^ 
So  far  as  their  errors  proceed  from  a  superficial  use  of 
the  reason,  the  remedy  lies  in  a  fuller  use  of  the  reason. 
If  they  have  mistaken  the  sense  of  Scripture,  they  are 
to  be  invited  to  its  more  thorough  study.  Clement 
wrote  no  books,  as  did  some  of  the  fathers,  "  against 
all  heresies,"  for  the  purpose  of  a  detailed  exposure  of 
error ;  but  he  did  that  which  was  better :  he  combated 
the  errors  most  effectively  by  writings  whose  object 
was  to  exhibit  the  truth  in  the  fullness  of  its  attraction 
and  adaptation  for  man  ;  indeed  his  entire  literary  ac- 
tivity may  be  regarded  as  one  great  apology  for  the 
Christian  faith  by  showing  what  the  faith  really  was. 

Clement  does  not  give  any  formal  definition  of  the 
church,  nor  are  his  few  allusions  to  the  subject  of  a 
kind  to  satisfy  those  in  search  of  a  historical  catena 
by  which  later  notions  regarding  the  church  may  be 
supported.  There  are  no  traces  in  his  writings  of  the 
doctrine  of  apostolic  succession ;  the  unity  of  the 
church  is  nowhere  made  to  depend  upon  unity  with 

1  Strom.f  vii.  c.  15. 

3  Ibid.  »  Strom.,  viL  c.  16. 


62  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY, 

the  bishop ;  baptism  is  not  presented  as  essential  to 
salvation ;  nor  is  salvation  limited  to  those  within  the 
visible  organization.  The  clergy  are  not  regarded  as 
having  any  special  priestly  character ;  in  the  current 
acceptation  of  terms,  there  is  in  the  church  neither 
priesthood,  sacrifice,  nor  altar.  Everywhere  the  Scrip- 
tures are  placed  above  the  church  as  well  as  before 
it,  and  Scripture  is  not  intrusted  to  the  hierarchy  for 
preservation  or  interpretation,  but  to  the  Christian 
conscience.  And  yet  the  church  which  Clement  por- 
trays has  its  notes.  Its  main  characteristic  is  ethical. 
It  is  composed  of  those  who  realize  their  calling  as  the 
children  of  God,  who  have  put  aside  the  old  man  and 
stripped  off  the  garment  of  wickedness,  and  put  on 
the  immortality  of  Christ.  The  church  has  also  or- 
ganic life ;  it  is  a  community  of  men  who  are  led  by 
the  divine  Logos,  an  invincible  city  upon  earth  which 
no  force  can  subdue,  where  the  wiU  of  God  is  done 
as  it  is  in  heaven.  The  church  is  like  a  human  be- 
ing,i  consisting  of  many  members ;  it  is  refreshed  and 
grows ;  it  is  welded  and  compacted  together ;  it  is  fed 
and  sustained  by  a  supernatural  life,  and  becomes  in  its 
turn,  in  the  hands  of  the  divine  Instructor,  a  means  of 
leading  humanity  into  life.  The  bond  of  the  church's 
unity,  the  secret  of  the  church's  life  and  growth,  is  the 
living  personal  Christ,  whose  immanence  in  humanity 
is  the  only  force  adequate  to  its  deliverance  from  sin, 
and  its  final  perfecting  according  to  the  original  pur- 
pose of  its  creation. 

The  sacraments,  and,  in  general,  the  rites  of  wor- 
ship, do  not  meet  any  extensive  treatment  in  the  writ- 
ings of  Clement.     What  is  said  on  these  topics  is 
always  in  the  way  of  incidental  allusion  rather  than 
1  Pcedag.,  i.  c.  6. 


THE  SACRAMENTS  AS  SYMBOLS.  63 

of  direct  exposition.  In  Clement's  thought,  the  real 
presence  and  the  divine  activity  of  the  living  personal 
Christ  is  organically  related  to  the  soul,  in  all  times 
and  places',  in  all  the  conditions  and  circumstances  of 
life.  He  alone  purifies  man  from  sin,  leads  him  to  re- 
pentance, and  prepares  him  for  that  supreme  moment 
when,  in  the  waters  of  baptism,  he  takes  the  vow  of 
seK-consecration  to  the  divine  will.  He  alone  every- 
where and  always  gives  Himself  to  humanity  as  the 
bread  of  life.  Hence  the  sacraments  became  symbols 
of  great  spiritual  processes  ;  they  are  signs,  and  effec- 
tive signs,  of  an  actual  purification  and  an  actual 
sustenance.  But  the  vast  spiritual  reality  is  never 
limited,  diminished,  or  materialized  by  identifying  the 
sign  with  the  thing  signified.  The  water  of  baptism  is 
charged  with  no  magical  potency ;  the  bread  and  wine 
are  not  transmuted  into  spiritual  power  operating  as 
by  a  mechanical  law ;  the  bread  and  wine  stand  as 
metaphors  ^  of  that  eternal  Word  of  life  conveyed  by 
God  in  Christ  to  those  who  know  to  receive  it,  by  the 
many  and  diverse  channels  of  approach  to  which  the 
soul  lies  open.  The  idea  of  a  sacrifice  in  the  eucharist 
which  the  church  pleads  before  God,  or  which  propi- 
tiates the  divine  favor,  is  disavowed  :  "  Neither  by  sac- 
rifices nor  offerings,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  by  glory 
and  honor,  is  the  Deity  won  over,  nor  is  He  influenced 
by  any  such  things  ;  "  "  we  glorify  Him  who  gave  Him- 
self in  sacrifice  for  us,  we  also  sacrificing  ourselves."  ^ 
There  is  in  the  nature  of  spiritual  things  no  other  sac- 
rifice than  that  of  self  to  do  God's  will,  which  man 
can  offer  to  the  Eter^al.^  "  The  altar  that  is  with  us 
here  on  earth  is  the  congregation  of  those  who  devote 
themselves  to  prayer,  having,  as  it  were,  one  common 
*  Pcedag.y  i.  c.  6.        ^  Strom.,  vii.  c.  3.        '  Strom.,  vii.  c.  6. 


64  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

voice  and  mind."  "  The  sacrifice  of  the  church  is  the 
word  breathing  as  incense  from  holy  souls,  the  sacrifice 
and  the  whole  mind  being  at  the  same  time  unveiled 
to  God." 

In  the  lifetime  of  Clement,  the  contagion  of  a  false 
asceticism  was  beginning  to  spread  in  the  church,  al- 
though its  recognition  as  a  principle  of  the  Christian 
life  was  still  chiefly  confined  to  the  heretical  sects,  such 
as  the  Montanists  and  the  Gnostics.  In  opposition  to 
those  who  advocated  voluntary  poverty  or  the  aban- 
donment of  property,  by  a  misunderstanding  of  the 
teaching  of  Christ,  Clement  reasons  that  it  is  the  inor- 
dinate love  of  money  which  the  Saviour  condemns  ; 
that  the  abuse  of  riches,  not  their  possession,  hurts 
the  soul.  What  Christ  desires  is  the  conversion  of 
the  inward  man  to  Himself,  and.  this  can  be  accom- 
plished by  no  external  procedure.  It  is  God's  design 
that  property  should  be  unequally  distributed ;  the  di- 
vine education  of  humanity  includes  the  right  use  of 
riches ;  they  are  the  stewardship  of  a  trust  for  one's 
own  benefit,  and  that  of  others.  Hence  the  doctrine 
of  the  community  of  goods  appears  to  him  to  contro- 
vert the  divine  will.^  Clement  does  not  conceive  of 
fasting  as  coiwisting  in  abstinence  from  meat  and 
wine ;  such  an  idea  prevailed  in  heathen  religions,  and 
has  no  essential  relationship  to  Christian  culture.^ 
There  is  a  true  fasting,^  which  lies  not  in  the  mortifi- 
cation of  the  body  or  the  endeavor  to  extirpate  the 
physical  appetites,  but  in  obtaining  the  mastery  over 
sin  ;  the  abstinence  from  all  evil  in  thought,  word,  or 
action,  —  from  covetousness  and^ voluptuousness,  from 
which  all  vices  flow.     The  only  true  fasting  is  that 

1  Strom.y  iii.  c.  9.  ^  Strom.,  iii.  c.  7. 

8  Pcedag.f  vii.  c.  12  ;  Strom.,  vi.  c.  12  ;  Ibid.  vii.  c.  12. 


OPPOSITION   TO  ASCETICISM.  65 

which  God  has  appointed,  —  to  loose  the  bands  of 
wickedness,  to  dissolve  the  knots  of  oppressive  con- 
tracts, to  let  the  oppressed  go  free,  to  cover  the  naked, 
and  to  shelter  the  homeless  poor.  Against  those  who 
urged  the  celibate  life  as  preferable  in  itself,  on  the 
ground  that  thus  a  greater  work  could  be  done  for 
God,  or  the  salvation  of  the  individual  soul  more  per- 
fectly secured,  Clement  maintained  that  marriage  is  a 
divine  ordinance,  given  to  subserve  the  loftiest  pur- 
poses of  human  education  and  discipline,  and  not  a 
concession  to  the  flesh.  He  who  is  married  is  more  of 
a  man  and  fitted  for  a  larger  work  for  God,  in  that  he 
receives  thereby  the  fuller,  more  complex  discipline  of 
life,  in  his  solicitude  for  wife  and  children,  home  and 
possessions,  remaining  faithful  through  all  temptations, 
and  inseparable  from  the  love  of  God.^  In  Clem- 
ent's application  the  words  of  Christ,  "  There  am  I 
in  the  midst  of  them,"  apply  to  the  family,  where 
father  and  mother  and  children  gather  together  in  his 
name.^ 

The  principle  which  made  Clement  strong  to  resist 
the  sinister  tendencies  of  asceticism  sprang  from  his 
idea  of  God  and  of  His  relationship  to  the  world.  The 
world  is  sacred  as  a  divine  creation,  —  the  abode  cf 
indwelling  Deity ;  the  human  body  is  the  temple  of  a 
Holy  Spirit,  and  becomes  a  very  sanctuary  by  conse- 
cration to  the  will  of  God.  The  outward  world  is  or- 
dered in  the  divine  purpose  for  the  well  -  being  of 
man,  its  beauty  is  the  reflection  of  a  higher,  di- 
viner beauty  ;  it  belongs  to  one  organic  whole,  the 
disowning  of  which  in  any  part  is  to  distrust  God 
and  contemn  His  wisdom.  While  the  power  of  self- 
restraint  is  one  of  the  divinest  gifts  of  God  to  man, 
^  Strom.,  vii.  c.  12.  ^  Strom.,  iii.  c.  10. 


66  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

and  temperance  and  moderation  are  to  be  followed  in 
all  things,  so  that  the  life  of  the  senses  does  not  en- 
tangle and  weaken  the  higher  energies  of  the  spirit, 
yet  every  creature  of  God  is  good  and  to  be  received 
with  thankfulness  ;  "  The  economy  of  creation  is  good, 
and  all  things  are  well-administered :  nothing  happens 
without  a  cause.  I  must  be  in  what  is  thine,  O  om- 
nipotent One ;  and  if  I  am,  then  am  I  near  Thee.'.'  ^ 
Man,  it  is  true,  is  in  this  world  as  in  a  pilgrimage ; 
yet  he  uses  inns  and  dwellings  by  the  way ;  he  has  a 
care  of  the  things  of  the  world,  of  the  places  where 
he  halts.  The  wise  man  is  ready  to  leave  his  dwelling- 
place  and  property  without  excessive  emotion,  he  gives 
thanks  for  his  sojourn,  and  blesses  God  for  his  depar- 
ture. We  are  sojourners  in  the  world,  but  we  are  also 
at  home  in  the  world.  No  one  is  a  stranger  to  the 
world  by  nature,  for  their  essence  is  one,  and  God  is 
one.2 

Clement  has  expressed  himself  sparingly  in  refer- 
ence to  the  future  life,  and  what  are  called  the  "  last 
things."  Either  he  is  not  interested  in  questions  which 
cannot  be  solved,  and  avoids  the  sphere  of  mere  opin- 
ion, or  his  mind  is  preoccupied  with  the  theme  of  re- 
demption, as  calling  out  and  satisfying  the  highest 
energies  of  the  soul.  The  opinion  once  so  generally 
held,  especially  among  Jewish  Christians,  and  still 
prevailing  among  the  Christians  in  the  West  in  Clem- 
ent's own  time,  that  Christ  was  soon  to  make  a  sec- 
ond personal  coming  in  the  flesh,  in  order  to  introduce 
a  millennium  for  the  faithful  and  to  take  vengeance 
upon  his  adversaries,  is  to  his  mind  irrational,  for  it 
contradicts  his  supreme  conviction  that  the  essential 
spiritual  Christ  is  already  here  in  the  fullness  of  his 
1  Strom.,  iv.  c.  23.  ^  Strom.,  iv.  c.  26 


THE  IMMORTAL  LIFE.  67 

exalted  might,  and  has  already  begun  to  witness  his 
triumph  "  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father."  The 
judgment  of  the  world  is  not  viewed  as  a  fixed  event 
in  the  distant  future,  but  as  now  forming  part,  an 
integral  part,  of  the  process  by  which  the  human  race 
is  educated  under  its  divine  Instructor.  The  motives 
and  sanctions  of  the  higher  spiritual  life  are  not  the 
rewards  of  future  bliss ;  but  the  service  and  imitation 
of  God  for  His  own  sake  is  the  inspiration  and  reward 
of  the  tridy  enlightened  Christian. ^  Clement  did  not 
accept  the  opinion  regarding  the  resurrection,  which 
was  received  in  the  West,  and  sustained  by  Tertullian, 
that  the  identical  flesh  of  the  body  which  had  been  laid 
in  the  grave  would  be  reanimated ;  the  resurrection 
was  the  standing  up  again  in  immortal  life ;  it  was  not 
the  same  body,  but  a  reclothing  in  some  higher  form 
of  the  purified  spirit.  The  future  life  is  conceived  as 
existing  in  different  stages  of  blessedness  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  a  progressive  development.  "  God  works  aU 
things  up  to  what  is  better."  ^  The  beneficent  work 
of  the  Saviour  is  not  restricted  by  any  accidents  of 
time  or  place,  but  He  operates  to  save  at  all  times  and 
everywhere.  "  If  in  this  life  there  are  so  many  ways 
for  purification  and  repentance,  how  much  more  should 
there  be  after  death.  The  purification  of  souls  when 
separated  from  the  body  will  be  easier.  We  can  set 
no  limits  to  the  agency  of  the  Redeemer ;  to  redeem, 
to  rescue,  to  discipline,  is  His  work,  and  so  will  He 
continue  to  operate  after  this  life."  ^  It  may  be  that 
Clement  had  limited  notions  of  the  immensity  of  the 
universe,  as  modern  astronomy  has  revealed  it;  but 

1  Strom.j  iv.  c.  22. 

2  Stram.y  iv.  c.  26. 

*  Strorru,  vi.  c.  6  ;  cf.  Neander,  History  of  Doctrine,  p.  254. 


68  THE  GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

even  had  he  known  all  that  we  know,  one  cannot  think 
that  it  would  have  shaken  his  faith  in  the  doctrine  of 
the  incarnation, — that  the  invsignificance  of  this  planet 
among  the  millions  of  the  spheres  would  have  been  to 
him  a  reason  why  God  could  not  have  walked  it  in  hu- 
man form.  His  belief  in  the  inherent  worth  of  the 
individual  soul,  as  constituted  after  the  divine  image, 
would  not  allow  him  to  succumb  to  the  thought  that 
man  was  created  practically  an  animal  only,  with  the 
possibility  attached  of  some  time  receiving  an  immor- 
tal spirit  in  virtue  of  his  own  exertions ;  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  any  soul  could  continue  forever  to  re- 
sist the  force  of  redeeming  love.  Somehow  and  some- 
where, in  the  long  run  of  ages,  that  love  must  prove 
mightier  than  sin  and  death,  and  vindicate  its  power 
in  one  universal  triumph. 

The  theology  of  Clement  has  been  presented  at 
some  length,  because,  as  the  first  of  the  great  Greek 
fathers,  he  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  those  that 
came  after  him  that  Augustine  sustained  to  the  Latin 
theology  of  the  Middle  Ages,  or  Luther  and  Calvin 
to  the  later  Protestantism.  The  modifications  of  his 
thought  by  later  fathers  were  considerable ;  but  as  in 
the  mediaeval  church  the  type  of  Augustine's  theology 
continued  to  prevail  though  some  of  his  tenets  were 
discarded,  or  as  Lutheranism  and  Calvinism,  while 
abandoning  much  that  was  essential  in  the  attitude  of 
their  leaders,  still  retained  a  certain  faithfulness  to 
them  which  continued  to  manifest  itself  in  their  his- 
tory, so  the  Greek  theology,  as  presented  or  developed 
by  Origen,  Athanasius,  Basil,  and  the  two  Gregories, 
remained  substantially  true  to  the  spirit  of  Clement's 
teaching. 


CLEMENT  AND  MARCUS  AURELIUS.        69 

In  one  respect,  Clement  had  an  advantage  over  all 
that  followed  him.  He  lived  in  a  fresh  creative  epoch ; 
his  age  witnessed  the  production  of  the  ancient  creeds, 
those  spontaneous  utterances  welling  forth  from  the 
heart  of  the  church,  which,  as  summaries  of  great 
convictions  by  which  the  soul  of  man  was  possessed, 
have  an  enduring  freshness  and  value  which  no  lapse 
of  time  can  impair.  It  was  Clement's  peculiar  merit 
that  he  kept  himself  so  free  from  entanglement  with 
mere  opinions.  He  never  lost  sight  of  the  distinction 
between  God  as  the  great  reality  and  all  human  spec- 
ulations about  Him.  In  his  own  words,  "  there  is  a 
difference  between  declaring  God  and  declaring  things 
about  God."  To  declare  God  was  the  ruling  purpose 
of  his  life.  He  held,  or  rather  was  held,  by  a  supreme 
conviction,  that  God  and  humanity  were  bound  together 
in  one  through  Christ ;  that  God  did  not  leave  men  to 
themselves  in  the  search  after  Him,  but  was  forever 
going  forth  in  Christ  to  seek  after  men  and  to  lead 
them  into  life. 

It  was  some  such  truth  as  this  for  which  Plutarch 
had  been  yearning,  which  he  and  many  other  noble 
heathens  were  in  vain  trying  to  extract  from  the  old 
polytheism.  Had  Marcus  Aurelius  known  of  such  a 
teacher  as  Clement  described,  it  would  seem  as  though 
the  inmost  need  of  his  being  must  have  been  met  and 
satisfied. 

The  history  of  the  age  in  which  Clement  lived  yields 
no  traces  of  the  extent  of  his  influence,  vast  as  we  may 
feel  that  influence  must  have  been.  It  is  strange  how 
almost  all  knowledge  of  the  man  himself  has  disap- 
peared. Only  his  books  remain  to  show  us  what  he 
was  like.  Judging  from  these,  said  the  late  Mr.  Mau- 
rice,  "  he  seems  to  me  that  one  of  the  old  fathers 


70  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

whom  we  all  should  have  reverenced  most  as  a  teacher 
and  loved  as  a  friend."  ^ 

m. 

Clement  was  succeeded  in  the  headship  of  the  school 
at  Alexandria  by  Origen  (186-254),  who  had  been  his 
pupil,  and  whose  brilliant  genius  eclipsed  the  reputa- 
tion of  his  teacher.  The  fame  of  Origen  surpasses 
that  of  any  other  ancient  father  for  the  extent  of  his 
learning  and  the  range  of  his  mental  powers.  So  pro- 
found was  the  impression  which  he  left  upon  his  own 
and  succeeding  ages,  that  he  became  the  starting-point 
from  which  later  directions  of  thought  took  their  de- 
parture, while  still  acknowledging  their  indebtedness  to 
his  influence.  Systems  even  that  were  hostile  to  each 
other,  the  right  and  the  left  wing  in  the  trinitarian 
controversy,  each  claimed  the  sanction  of  his  name. 
If  Arius  appealed  to  his  authority,  Athanasius  was 
eager  to  vindicate  his  reputation  for  orthodoxy.  For 
these  reasons,  Origen  has  been  often  taken  as  the  best 
representative  of  the  Greek  theology,  while  the  name 
of  his  master  has  been  allowed  to  sink  into  neglect. 
There  was  another  reason  why  Origen  rather  than 
Clement   should   have  been  identified  so  exclusively 

^  Eccles.  History  of  the  First  and  Second  Centuries,  p.  239.  The 
name  of  Clement  was  retained  in  the  calendar  of  the  Roman- 
Catholic  Church  as  a  saint  until  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, when  it  was  omitted  under  the  pontificate  of  Clement  VIII- 
(1592-1605).  Pope  Benedict  XIII.  (1724-1730)  justified  its 
omission,  on  the  grounds  that  little  was  known  of  his  life,  that 
no  popular  cult  had  gathered  round  his  memory,  and  that  there 
were  divergent  estimates  of  the  value  of  his  teaching.  It  was 
manifestly  an  oversight  that  his  name  should  have  remained  so 
long  in  the  Roman  calendar.  Cf.  Freppel,  Clement  d' Alexandria, 
p.  65. 


ORIGEN.  71 

with  Alexandrian  theology.  Coming  as  he  did  a  gen- 
eration after  Clement,  he  fell  upon  an  age  which  was 
seeking  to  define  and  justify,  in  speculative  terms,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Christian  trinity.  When  this  great 
issue  began  to  absorb  the  energies  of  the  church,  an 
earlier  writer  like  Clement,  who  had  not  aj^proached 
the  problem  on  its  purely  intellectual  side,  nor  con- 
tributed anything  definite  to  its  solution,  would  fall 
outside  the  circle  of  living  interests. 

But  notwithstanding  the  different  requirements  of 
his  age  and  his  own  mental  independence,  Origen  was 
in  substantial  sympathy  with  the  theology  of  his 
teacher.  In  his  interpretation  of  the  Christian  faith, 
Clement  reappears,  often  in  greater  clearness  and 
fullness,  as  well  as  beauty  of  expression.  It  is  there- 
fore as  unnecessary  as  it  would  be  impossible  to  at- 
tempt a  resum^  of  his  complete  thought.  It  is  in 
his  relation  to  philosophy  that  Origen  diverged  most 
widely  from  Clement,  and  to  this  divergence  were 
owing  the  fanciful  opinions  which  have  disfigured  his 
teaching,  and  which  the  common  sense  of  the  church, 
even  in  his  own  time,  repudiated.  Like  Clement, 
Origen  believed  that  philosophy  was  a  divinely  ap- 
pointed means  for  attaining  the  truth.  But  Clement 
adhered  to  no  one  system  of  philosophical  thought  as 
containing  the  absolute  truth,  and  possessed  an  in- 
ward vigor  of  spirit,  by  which  the  heathen  elements 
in  the  systems  of  Plato  or  Aristotle  or  Zeno  might  be 
eliminated  or  transmuted  by  a  higher  method.  "  By 
philosophy,"  he  says,  "I  do  not  mean  the  Stoic  or 
the  Platonic  or  the  Epicurean  or  the  Aristotelian,  but 
whatever  has  been  well  said  by  each  of  those  sects 
which  teach  righteousness  along  with  a  faith  pervaded 
by  piety." 


72  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

Origen,  on  the  contrary,  came  under  the  influence 
of  the  rising  Neo-Platonism,  and  was  inclined  to  re- 
ceive it  as  a  whole,  to  adopt  its  methods  for  the  ex- 
plication of  the  more  recondite  principles  of  Christian 
theology.  1  The  principle  of  the  Neo-Platonists,  whose 
object  was  to  create  an  eclectic  system  in  which  all 
forms  of  philosophy  and  religion  might  be  harmonized, 
commended  itself  naturally  to  a  mind  like  Origen' s, 
with  its  vast  capacity  for  generalizations,  with  its  in- 
satiate thirst  for  a  system  which  should  embrace  all 
things  in  heaven  and  earth.  Thus  are  explained  his 
notions  about  the  origin  of  evil,  a  fall  in  celestial  cir- 
cles, the  preexistence  and  transmigration  of  souls,  the 
design  of  the  body  as  a  prison-house  of  the  spirit,  the 
prominence  assigned  to  angels  as  corresponding  some- 
what to  the  demons  of  the  old  polytheism,  and  also 
his  principle  of  biblical  interpretation  which  led  him 
to  neglect  the  literal  teaching  of  Scripture  in  the  in- 
terest of  some  fancied  higher  truth  discerned  beneath 
the  letter.2 

While  Origen  was  to  some  extent  unfavorably  in- 

^  After  Origen  had  begun  his  career  as  a  teacher  in  the  Chris- 
tian school  in  Alexandria,  he  placed  himself  under  the  instruc- 
tion of  Ammonius  Saccas,  the  first  of  the  long  and  distinguished 
line  of  Neo-Platonic  philosophers.  Euseb.  H.  E.,  vi.  19.  See, 
also,  Mosheim's  Commentaries,  ii.  sect.  27  ;  Redepenning,  Ori- 
genes,  p.  230  ;  Ritter,  Die  Christliche  Philosophie,  i.  340. 

2  Origen,  it  should  be  said,  recognized  a  wide  difference  be- 
tween his  speculative  fancies  and  the  essentials  of  Christian  rev- 
elation. Nor  did  the  purity  of  his  faith  or  the  simplicity  of  his 
Christian  character  suffer  from  his  intellectual  vagaries.  Mos- 
heim,  who  had  great  contempt  for  his  philosophical  aberrations, 
says  of  him  :  "  Certainly,  if  any  man  deserves  to  stand  first 
in  the  catalogue  of  saints  and  martyrs,  and  to  be  annually  held 
up  as  an  example  to  Christians,  this  is  the  man."  —  CommentarieSf 
ii.  149. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  NEO-PLATONISM.      73 

fluenced  by  Neo-Platonic  thought,  yet  in  his  attitude 
toward  the  fundamental  issues  which  it  was  the  aim 
of  that  philosophy  to  explain,  he  rests  upon  the  Chris- 
tian revelation,  and  brings  out  the  truth  of  the  incar- 
nation as  that  which  can  alone  meet  the  needs  of 
speculative  inquiry  or  the  wants  of  the  religious  life. 
In  some  respects,  it  is  true,  the  Neo-Platonists  had 
before  them  the  same  problem  which  confronted  the 
Christian  theologian.  That  problem  was  no  other 
than  to  bind  together  in  close  organic  unity  the  world 
and  God,  —  to  overcome  the  tendency  to  separation 
derived  from  oriental  theosophies  which  was  exerting 
its  influence  upon  Greek  philosophy  as  well  as  upon 
Christian  thought.  The  dying  words  of  Plotinus  have 
been  often  quoted  as  expressing  the  ruling  idea  of  his 
philosophy :  "  I  am  striving  to  bring  the  God  which  is 
in  me  into  harmony  with  the  God  which  is  in  the  uni- 
verse." One  difference  between  the  Christian  thinker 
and  the  pagan  philosopher  lay  in  this :  that  the  one 
started  with  the  conviction  of  the  divine  immanence 
in  the  world  and  in  humanity,  while  the  other  could 
not  escape  from  the  notion  of  God  as  primarily  exist- 
ing at  an  infinite  distance,  in  an  absolute  isolation 
from  the  world.  The  problem  of  the  Neo-Platonic 
philosopher  had  been  already  solved  indeed,  had  he 
but  known  it,  in  the  theology  of  the  incarnation. 
Hence,  however  Origen  may  seem  to  approximate  to 
the  position  of  heathen  thought,  the  appearance  is  but 
superficial ;  he  may  admit  the  heathen  postulate  of  a 
distant  and  unknown  Deity,  and  the  admission  may 
involve  him  in  contradiction  and  confusion,  but  he 
never  yields  his  conviction  of  the  indwelling  God  as 
revealed  in  Christ.  In  Him  the  visible  creation  in  all 
its  grades  of  existence  lives  and  moves  and  has  its 


74  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

being ;  in  Him  it  is  the  prerogative  of  humanity  by 
?  virtue  of  its  constitution  to  participate.^ 

The  contribution  of  Origen  toward  the  great  ques- 
tion of  his  age  was  of  the  highest  value  to  all  who 
followed  him.  He  did  not  indeed  reach  the  true  for- 
mula of  the  Christian  trinity,  but  he  made  it  possible 
for  his  successors  to  do  so  by  his  well-known  doctrine 
of  the  eternal  generation  of  the  Son.  When  interpret- 
ed by  the  light  of  his  age,  that  doctrine  was  the  effort 
to  bind  together  Father  and  Son  and  Holy  Spirit  in 
a  necessary  organic  communion  and  fellowship.  The 
result  of  the  heathen  belief  invading  the  church  was 
not  only  to  separate  God  from  man,  but  to  separate 
also  between  the  Father  and  the  eternal  Son ;  to  reduce 
Christ  to  the  rank  of  creatures  brought  into  existence 
by  the  absolute  will.  In  the  doctrine  of  the  eternal  gen- 
eration of  the  Son,  Origen  was  resisting  the  heathen 
principle  which  makes  God  the  absolute  incommuni- 
cable Deity.  From  all  eternity,  so  Origen  reasoned, 
by  a  necessary  law  of  His  being,  God  communicates 
Himself  to  the  Son,  —  the  light  which  is  the  life  and 
blessedness  of  the  whole  creation  goes  forth  eternally 
from  the  source  of  light,  as  the  rays  go  forth  from  the 
sun.  To  exist  in  relationship  is  the  essential  idea  of 
God.  To  think  otherwise  would  be  to  rob  Deity  of 
His  true  glory.  If  He  existed  alone  in  simple  unity 
and  solitary  grandeur,  apart  from  some  object  upon 
which  from  all  eternity  to  expend  His  love,  in  whom 
He  forever  delighted  to  see  Himself  reflected,  then 
He  was  not  from  aU  eternity  God  ;  His  fatherhood, 
His  love.  His  infinite  power  would  be  accessions  to  His 
being  in  the  course  of  time.  There  would  have  been 
a  time,  therefore,  when  He  was  imperfect,  when  love 
^  De  Princip.f  i.  c.  3. 


THE   CHURCH'S  DILEMMA.  76 

did  not  go  forth,  when  the  light  did  not  shine,  when 
the  righteousness  and  power  of  Deity  lay  idle  and  in- 
effective.^ 

Beyond  this,  Origen  did  not  go.  There  remained 
another  step  to  take,  the  nature  of  which  could  be 
seen,  and  its  necessity  demonstrated  only  when  the 
logic  of  events  should  have  ripened  the  mind  of  the 
church,  and  exposed  more  clearly  the  danger  to  which 
the  Christian  faith  was  exposed  from  the  inroads  of 
the  heathen  principle.  To  this  end  even  the  errors 
of  Origen  contributed.  It  was  seen  that  his  thought 
must  be  supplemented  if  the  truth  which  he  had 
reached  was  to  be  retained.  For) while  Origen  had, 
asserted  the  eternal  generation  of  the  Son  from  the 
Father,  he  did  not  resist  successfully  the  prevailing 
oriental  notion  that  what  is  generated  must  be  in 
some  way  inferior  to  the  source  from  which  it  pro- 
ceeds. Hence  he  had  so  subordinated  the  Son  to  the 
Father  and  the  Spirit  to  the  Son,  that  his  conception 
of  the  trinity  might  be  regarded  as  akin  to  the  prin- 
ciple by  which  Neo-Platonism  was  seeking  to  revive 
the  old  polytheism^ 

Two  directions  in  thought  lay  open  to  the  church 
after  Origen's  departure,  both  of  which  claimed  the 
authority  of  his  reputation :  the  one,  neglecting  his 
doctrine  of  eternal  generation,  pushed  to  an  extreme 
the  principle  of  subordination ;  while  the  other  dropped 
the  idea  of  subordination,  and  asserting  the  coequality 
of  the  three  distinctions  in  the  divine  name,  sought  to 
carry  out  all  that  was  implied  in  the  positive  prin- 
ciple of  a  Son  eternally  generated  from  the  Father. 
Long  before  Arius  appeared  the  divergence  had  be- 
gun to  be  manifested.  In  what  was  known  as  Sabel- 
*  De  Princip.y  i.  c.  2. 


76  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

lianism  may  be  read  the  protest  of  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness against  the  separation  of  the  Son  from  the 
Father,  or  of  the  infinite  Spirit  from  both.  But  this 
protest  against  separation  and  subordination  was  car- 
ried so  far  as  to  obliterate  the  eternal  distinction 
between  them.  The  tendency  of  what  is  known  as 
Sabellianism,  if  it  had  prevailed,  would  have  so  en- 
feebled the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  trinity  as  to 
make  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit  merely  names  for 
the  diverse  operations  of  God,  and  thus  eventually 
have  substituted  for  the  complex  and  fruitful  idea  of 
Deity  as  given  in  the  Christian  revelation  the  single 
or  simple  essence  of  Jewish  or  Mohammedan  deism. 
To  this  result  the  Arianism  of  a  later  age  was  also 
tending,  though  by  a  different  process. 

The  situation  was  a  difficult  one,  —  to  maintain  the 
distinct  and  eternal  existence  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Spirit,  while  not  denying  the  unity  of  the  one  God, 
and  on  the  other  hand  to  emphasize  the  divine  unity 
without  endangering  with  Sabellius  the  eternal  distinc- 
tions within  the  bosom  of  Godhead.  Jewish  deism  on 
the  one  hand,  and  polytheism  on  the  other,  were  the 
Scylla  and  Charybdis  between  which  the  church  was 
moving.  Either  of  them  was  an  easy  and  simple  solu- 
tion of  the  difficulty,  and  either  of  them  was  alike 
fatal  to  the  Christian  revelation.  The  issue  became  a 
clear  one  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourth  century.  The 
church  was  profoundly  moved  at  the  voice  of  Athana- 
sius  proclaiming,  as  the  doctrine  of  God,  the  one 
essence  within  which  coexisted,  and  as  it  were  circu- 
lated from  all  eternity,  the  three  vital  and  coequal 
forces  or  distinctions  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit. 


CHARACTER   OF ATHANASIUS.  11 

IV. 

Atlianasius  was  born  in  the  city  of  Alexandria  in 
the  year  296,  and  follows  Origen  as  the  next  most 
illustrious  representative  of  Greek  theology.  But  it 
is  not  to  Athanasius  in  his  capacity  as  a  theologian 
only  that  the  church  has  decreed  the  highest  honors. 
He  has  been  designated  the  father  of  orthodoxy,  but/ 
he  is  also  the  ecclesiastical  hero  in  the  supreme  crisis 
of  the  church's  career.  He  was  great  in  himself,  but 
he  also  owed  his  greatness  to  the  environment  of  his 
agre.  What  he  mis^ht  have  been  had  he  lived  at  an 
earlier  period  or  under  different  circimistances  it  is 
useless  to  conjecture.  The  external  events  of  his 
time  developed  in  him  a  character  not  seen  in  the 
church  before,  —  that  of  the  statesman  or  ecclesiastical 
politician  whose  object  it  was  not  to  attain  martyrdom 
but  ti'iumph,  who  exposed  himself  to  danger  in  order 
to  secure  success,  who  fought  in  order  to  conquer.  It 
is  sometimes  forgotten  in  ecclesiastical  circles,  where 
it  most  needs  to  be  remembered,  that  he  fought  not 
only  the  world  in  the  shape  of  an  intriguing  imperial 
court,  but  his  hardest  conflicts  were  with  the  church 
itself,  his  greatest  victory  over  the  oriental  bishops 
arrayed  against  him  in  a  large  majority.  His  name 
stands  for  the  encouragement  of  those  who  resist  the 
church  in  the  interest  of  some  higher  truth  which  it 
has  not  yet  learned  to  appreciate ;  his  experience 
illustrates  that  one  man  standing  out  against  the 
church  may  be  right  and  the  church  may  be  wrong ; 
and  further,  his  life  demonstrates  how  at  all  critical 
moments  the  faith  takes  refuge,  not  in  institutions  but 
in  individual  men.  To  Athanasius,  with  his  clear 
insight  and  his  unconquerable  purpose,  is  it  owing  that 


78  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

\4  the  church  was  saved  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Christian 
trinity. 

But  all  this  belongs  to  the  history  of  the  church 
as  an  institution.  We  are  concerned  now  only  with 
the  place  of  Athanasius  in  the  history  of  Christian 
thought. 

Born  and  brought  up  as  he  was  in  the  home  of 
Greek  theology,  he  had  drunk  in  the  influence  of  that 
culture  whose  aim  it  has  been  said  was  the  discovery 
of  the  highest  beauty  and  the  divinest  wisdom.  The 
traces  of  Greek  philosophy  are  apparent  in  his  writ- 
ings, and  the  principles  drawn  from  Greek  philosophy 
underlie  his  controversy  with  the  Arians.  "  He  was  a 
Greek  by  birth  and  education ;  Greek  also  in  subtle 
thought  and  philosophical  insight,  in  oratorical  power 
and  supple  statesmanship."  ^  In  his  theology  the 
habit  of  spiritual  thought  seen  in  Clement  and  Ori- 
gen  is  everywhere  visible ;  all  that  was  distinctive  of 
Greek  theology  in  its  contrast  with  the  later  Latin  be- 
longs to  him,  not  merely  by  way  of  traditional  accept- 
ance, but  through  the  free  concurrence  of  independent 
and  original  reflection. 

The  greater  part  of  Athanasius'  writings  are  of  a 
controversial  character.  But  in  two  small  treatises 
written  before  Arius  arose,  we  have  the  groundwork 
of  the  theology  which  served  him  in  his  long  struggle. 
They  are  entitled,  "  A  Treatise  against  the  Greeks," 
and  "  The  Incarnation  of  the  Word."  The  value  of 
the  first  treatise  lies  in  the  manner  in  which  he  con- 
ducts his  polemic  against  heathenism.  He  broke 
away  from  the  tiresome  and  fruitless  method  of 
former  apologists,  and  addressed  himself  directly  to 

1  Gwatkin,  Studies  of  ArianisMy -p.  67  ;  Fialon,  Saint  Athanase, 
284-291. 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  HEATHENISM.       79 

the  great  issue  between  Christianity  and  polytheism.  "■' 
The  class  of  educated  men  to  whom  he  spoke  no 
longer  believed  the  absurd  and  immoral  myths  which 
the  traditional  apologist  from  force  of  habit  continued 
to  expose  and  ridicule.  But  while  discarding  the  al> 
surdities  of  mythology,  men  like  Porphyry  and  Jam- 
blichus  still  maintained  that  the  world  was  created 
and  governed  by  intermediaries,  lower  deities,  who 
were  the  beneficent  forces  of  nature,  whose  dwelling- 
place  was  in  the  sun  or  planets,  in  the  ocean,  in  rivers, 
in  forests  and  groves,  or  in  the  human  mind.  To 
worship  them,  they  thought,  was  only  to  recognize 
through  them  the  higher  Deity  from  whom  they  pro- 
ceeded. This  was  the  point  to  which  the  controversy 
between  Celsus  and  Origen  had  reduced  itself.  The 
emperor  Julian,  in  a  treatise  now  lost,  in  which  he  was 
combating  Christianity,  expressed  the  most  deep-rooted 
conviction  of  heathenism  when  he  said  that  what  hin- 
dered him  from  giving  his  assent  to  the  new  religion 
was  the  impossibility,  to  his  mind,  of  conceiving  how 
the  one  and  infinite  God  was  able  to  govern  the  world 
without  a  retinue  of  intermediate  deities. 

Athanasius  met  this  position  ill  his  discourse  against 
the  Greeks  by  asserting  that  there  was  no  necessity 
for  such  intermediaries,  since  God  Himself  was  dwell- 
ing in  the  creation,  and  that  all  things  had  been  made 
directly  or  immediately  by  Him.  The  principle  upon 
which  he  rested  was  the  Stoic  doctrine  of  the  divine 
immanence.  "  The  all-powerful  and  perfect  reason  of 
the  Father,"  so  he  wrote,  "  penetrating  the  universe, 
developing  everywhere  its  forces,  illuminating  with 
His  light  things  visible  and  invisible,  made  of  them 
all  one  whole  and  bound  them  together,  allowing  noth- 
ing to  escape  from  his  powerful  action,  vivifying  and 


80  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY, 

preserving  all  beings  in  themselves,  and  in  the  har- 
mony of  the  creation."  "  In  the  light  of  the  divine 
Logos,  everything  lives  upon  earth  while  all  is  organ- 
ized in  the  heavens.  There  is  nothing  of  that  which 
is  and  which  each  day  appears  which  has  not  its  being 
in  Him,  and  by  Him,  its  place  in  the  universal  har- 
mony." ^ 

In  his  treatise  on  the  incarnation  one  can  see  the 
inner  process  in  Athanasius'  mind  as  he  labors  to  re- 
tain the  Stoic  principle  of  immanent  Deity  without 
confounding  God  with  the  world.  Like  his  predeces- 
sors Clement  and  Origen,  he  builds  his  thought  upon 
the  divine  immanence,  not  on  the  transcendence  of 
God.  "  This  divine  Logos,  a  being  incorporeal,  ex- 
pands Himself  in  the  universe  as  light  expands  in  the 
air,  penetrating  all,  and  all  entire,  everywhere.  He 
gives  Himself  without  losing  anything  of  Himself,  and 
with  Him  is  given  the  Father  who  makes  all  things 
by  Him,  and  the  Spirit  who  is  His  energy."  He  un- 
folds Himself  in  all  things  without  merging  Himself 
in  them.  The  Deity  communicates  Himself  to  His 
creatures,  penetrates  them,  animates  them,  while  yet 
remaining  distinct  from  them,  —  the  true  God  of  hu- 
manity whose  presence  and  love  we  feel,  the  vivifying 
intelligence  which  mingles  and  circulates  in  the  great 
body  of  the  universe.^ 

In  order  to  know  God  He  must  be  looked  for  within 
the  soul.^  The  soul  contemplates  shining  within  itself 
as  in  a  mirror,  the  image  of  the  Father,  the  Word  in- 
carnate, and  in  itself  it  conceives  the  Father.*     Upon 

^  Contra  Gentes,  c.  42. 

2  De  Incar.  Verbi,  cc.  8,  17.  Cf .  also  Domer's  Person  of  Christy 
Eng.  trans.  Div.  i.  vol.  ii.  p.  250. 

*  Contra  Gentes,  c.  33.  *  Contra  Gentes,  c.  34. 


HOW  GOD  IS   TO  BE  KNOWN.  81 

this  point,  the  way  to  the  knowledge  of  God,  the 
thought  of  Athanasius  reproduces  the  teaching  of 
Greek  philosophy,  and  more  especially  that  of  the 
Stoic  school.  The  revelation  of  God  is  written  in  the 
human  consciousness  ;  the  ground  of  all  certitude  is 
within  man,  not  in  any  authority  external  to  his  nature. 
"  In  order  to  know  the  way  which  leads  to  God  and 
to  take  it  with  certainty,  we  have  no  need  of  foreign 
aid,  but  of  ourselves  alone.  As  God  is  above  all,  the 
way  which  leads  to  Him  is  neither  distant,  nor  outside 
of  us,  nor  difficult  to  find.  The  kingdom  of  God  is 
within  us.  Since  we  have  in  us  the  kingdom  of  God, 
we  are  able  easily  to  contemplate  and  conceive  the  King 
of  the  universe,  the  salutary  reason  of  the  universal 
Father.  If  any  one  asks  of  me.  What  is  the  way  ?  I 
answer,  that  it  is  the  soul  of  each  and  the  intelligence 
which  it  encloses."  ^  The  wise  man  has  no  need  to 
seek  without  himself,  or  to  infer  the  divine  existence 
from  the  external  world.  He  sees  God  within  himseK, 
who  is  His  image  and  as  it  were  His  shadow. 

The  preparation  of  a  soul  for  seeking  and  knowing 
God  is  in  its  own  purification.  In  order  to  rise  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth,  it  is  necessary  to  unite  with 
the  intelligence  a  virtuous  life  and  purity  of  heart.  It 
is  the  soul  itself  which  of  itself  and  by  itself  disen- 
gages itself  from  that  which  stains  it,  and  is  thus 
rendered  worthy  of  entering  into  communion  with 
Him  who  is  purity.  It  is  not  through  grace  coming 
from  without,  but  by  a  voluntary  purification  within, 
that  man  can  see  God.  In  thoughts  like  these,  Atha- 
nasius was  only  asserting  the  principles  implied  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  incarnation.  As  he  reasons  in  his  dis- 
course against  the  Greeks,  it  is  through  the  revelation 
1  Contra  Gentes,  c.  30. 


82  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

of  God  in  Christ  that  man  comes  to  know  his  real 
nature,  and  the  power  with  which  he  has  been  invested. 
The  revelation  is  a  disclosing  to  man  of  his  true  con- 
stitution. Christ  has  come  to  break  down  the  barriers 
of  ignorance  and  neglect  by  which  man  is  hindered 
from  knowing  himself  in  the  capacities  and  destiny 
imprinted  upon  his  nature  in  the  first  creation.  Hence, 
with  Athanasius  as  with  his  predecessors,  the  freedom 
of  the  will  is  an  inalienable  heritage  in  virtue  of  the 
human  constitution  in  God's  image ;  it  still  exists  as 
the  ability  to  turn  to  what  is  good,  even  after  man  has 
turned  away  to  the  evil ;  it  cannot  be  forfeited  or  lost 
because  it  is  the  endowment  of  a  constitution  which  is 
divine.^ 

If  in  any  respect  in  his  view  of  the  incarnation, 
Athanasius  advances  upon  the  teaching  of  his  pred- 
ecessors, it  is  in  the  more  emphatic  assertion  of  the 
solidarity  of  the  human  race  in  Christ.  Christ  is  the 
head  and  representative  of  all  mankind,  and  through 
His  organic  relationship  with  humanity  all  that  He  was, 
all  that  He  did,  belongs  to  the  race  of  man.  From 
Him  mankind  inherits  a  glory  and  distinction  in  which 
all  its  members  share ;  from  Him  a  Spirit  flows  forth 
upon  all,  anointing  them  as  with  a  precious  ointment ; 
or,  in  other  words,  humanity  has  been  actually  re- 
deemed in  Christ.  He  took  upon  Himself  the  sin  and 
guilt  of  men  ;  in  Him  all  men  died  to  sin  ;  in  Him 
all  men  suffered  the  consequences  of  sin ;  in  Him  all 
men  share  in  the  punishment  of  sin ;  aU  men  inherit 
the  blessing  which  through  Him  comes  from  the  fulfill- 
ment of  the  law  of  righteousness,  and  aU  are  clothed 
with  incorruption  through  the  power  of  the  resurrec- 
tion.    The  saving  force  which  was  in  Him  becomes 

^  Maurice,  Philosophy  of  the  First  Six  Centuries,  pp.  85-90. 


ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  INCARNATION.    83 

henceforth  through  Him  inherent  in  the  life  of  human- 
ity and  is  diffused  through  all  its  members.^ 

No  better  illustration  to  set  forth  his  thought  can  be 
found,  than  that  which  Athanasius  himself  employed : 
"As  when  a  mighty  king  entering  some  great  city, 
although  he  occupies  but  one  of  its  houses,  positively 
confers  great  honor  upon  the  whole  city,  and  no  en- 
emy or  robber  any  longer  throws  it  into  confusion  by 
his  assaults,  but  on  account  of  the  presence  of  the 
king  in  one  of  its  houses,  the  city  is  rather  thought 
worthy  of  being  guarded  with  the  greatest  care.  So 
also  is  it  in  the  case  of  Him  who  is  Lord  over  all. 
For  when  He  came  into  our  country  and  dwelt  in  the 
body  of  one  like  ourselves,  thenceforth  every  plot  of 
the  enemy  against  mankind  was  defeated,  and  the 
corruption  of  death  that  formerly  operated  to  destroy 
men  lost  its  power."  ^ 

In  defending  the  truth  of  the  incarnation  against 
those  who  maintained  that  such  a  doctrine  implied 
what  was  absurd  and  impossible,  Athanasius  draws 
his  argument  from  Greek  philosophy,  and  urges  the 
Stoic  principle  of  the  divine  immanence,  as  lending 
rationality  and  probability  to  the  conviction  that  the 
Word  became  flesh  and  dwelt  among  men.  "  For  the 
world  itself  may  be  thought  of  as  one  great  body  in 
which  God  indwells ;  and  if  He  is  in  the  whole.  He  is 
also  in  the  parts.  It  is  no  more  unwbrthy  of  God  that 
He  should  incarnate  Himself  in  one  man,  than  it  is 
that  He  should  dwell  in  the  world.  Since  he  abides  in 
humanity,  which  is  a  part  of  the  universe,  it  is  not  un- 
reasonable that  he  should  take  up  His  abode  in  a  man 
who  should  thus  become  the  organ  by  which  God  acts 
on  the  universal  life."  ^ 

^  De  Incar.y  cc.  8,  9,  20  ;  Oratio  contra  Arianos,  i.  46-48. 
*  De  Incar.,  c.  9.  3  j)g  Jncar.f  c.  41. 


84  THE  GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

The  process  by  which  the  historical  Christ  who  lived 
and  taught  in  Judaea  is  identified  with  the  eternal 
Word  of  God  made  flesh,  does  not  for  Athanasius  de- 
pend primarily  upon  any  external  evidence  for  its 
verification.  Miracles  in  his  view  illustrate  the  inti- 
mate relationship  of  Christ  to  the  physical  world  as 
its  Lord  and  Master,  and  given  the  Christ,  they  are 
results  to  be  expected  by  way  of  confirmation  of  that 
which  is  already  perceived  and  believed.  But  the 
greatest  miracles  are  wrought  in  the  sphere  of  the  spir- 
itual life,  and  it  is  by  these  that  the  miracle  in  the  out- 
ward life  of  nature  is  corroborated.  For  example,  the 
evidence  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ  is  to  be  found 
mainly  in  the  reality  of  the  church's  life.  When  the 
darkness  of  the  material  world  gives  way  to  light,  it 
is  proof  that  the  sun  has  appeared.  So  also  in  the 
spiritual  world,  the  light  which  is  diffused  where  be- 
fore there  was  darkness  is  evidence  that  Christ  stiU 
lives.  Once  men  lived  under  bondage  through  fear  of 
death ;  now  death  has  lost  its  sting ;  even  women  and 
children  voluntarily  submit  to  it.  In  the  power  which 
effects  the  conversion  of  the  heathens,  in  the  influence 
which  transforms  the  life,  in  these  and  results  like 
these  lies  the  evidence  that  Christ  is  not  dead,  that  He 
is  risen  from  the  grave.  The  Saviour  Himself  continues 
to  offer  the  proof  of  His  resurrection  in  the  works 
which  He  still  accomplishes  for  the  salvation  of  men.^ 

Such  had  been  the  teaching  of  Athanasius  before 
the  year  318,  when  Arius  arose  in  Alexandria.  Arius 
had  had  his  precursors  in  the  history  of  the  church. 
In  the  sect  of  the  Ebionites,  and  in  the  pseudo-Clemen- 
tine writings  of  the  second  century,  may  be  seen  a  view 
of  Deity  struggling  for  recognition,  which,  at  a  later 
1  De  Incar.y  cc.  27-32. 


RISE  OF  THE  ARIAN  THEOLOGY,  85 

time,  was  to  find  its  full  development  in  the  teaching 
of  Mohammed.  The  Jewish  faith  was  so  popular  in 
the  second  century  throughout  the  Roman  empire 
that  it  threatened  to  break  the  bonds  of  national  ex- 
clusiveness,  and  expand  into  an  universal  religion.^ 
Had  it  done  so,  it  might  have  anticipated  by  centuries 
the  system  of  Islam,  which  like  Judaism  commended 
itself  to  deep-rooted  instincts  in  the  oriental  mind. 

Arius  had  received  his  training,  not  in  Alexandria,  >^ 
but  in  Antioch,  a  city  which,  located  as  it  was  on  the 
eastern  confines  of  the  empire,  had  not  been  able,  de- 
spite its  attachment  to  Hellenic  cidture,  to  overcome 
the  preponderating  influence  of  orientalism.  Here 
toward  the  close  of  the  third  fcentury  was  growing  up 
a  school  of  Christian  thought,  antagonistic  in  its  spirit 
to  that  which  had  constituted  the  niling  idea  of  Greek 
theology,  —  a  school  which  was  destined  also  to  leave 
its  impression  on  the  Christian  church.  The  leading 
characteristic  of  the  school  of  Antioch  was  the  orien- 
tal tendency  it  displayed  to  separate  the  human  from 
the  divine.  The  tie  which  united  them,  however  it 
may  have  been  viewed,  did  not  spring  out  of  the  natu- 
ral kinship  of  the  human  with  the  divine,  —  a  kinship 
always  existing,  but  revealed  in  the  splendor  of  its 
perfection  in  Christ.  In  the  Antiochian  theology 
there  was  a  disposition  to  regard  the  nexus  between  the 
Deity  and  humanity  as  the  arbitrary  exertion  of  the 
divine  power,  by  which  natures  incongruous  and  in- 
compatible in  their  essence  had  been  brought  together 
in  an  artificial  alliance  rather  than  a  living  union. 

Beneath  this  conception  of  the  relation  of  the  hu- 
man to  the  divine  lurked  the  oriental  idea  of  God  as 
the  absolute  and  incommunicable,  for  whom  contact 
^  Heuauj  Le  Judaisme  comme  Race  et  comme  Religion,  p.  20. 


86  THE  GREEK  THEOLOGY, 

with  humanity  or  with  the  world  was  by  his  very 
nature  impossible.  From  such  a  point  of  view,  the 
incarnation  of  God  in  Christ  was  not  only  inconceiv- 
able by  the  reason,  but  seemed  also  to  endanger  the 
well-being  of  true  religion. 

Arius  was  the  first  to  formally  advocate  such  a  view 
of  Deity,  and  to  follow  it  out  in  its  logical  conse- 
quences to  the  denial  of  the  incarnation.  Of  his  sin- 
cerity there  can  be  no  doubt,  nor  of  his  high  moral 
character.  It  does  not  surprise  us  to  learn  that  he 
was  a  strict  ascetic,  surpassing  in  this  respect  his 
Christian  contemporaries ;  for  asceticism  was  a  neces- 
sary concomitant  of  oriental  religion,  and  had  at  first 
appeared  in  those  sects  and  heresies  claiming  an  orien- 
tal origin  before  it  made  itself  at  home  in  the  church. 
The  time  in  which  Arius  lived  was  favorable  to  the 
spread  of  his  thought,  for  the  Roman  emperor  had  just 
professed  himself  a  Christian,  and  the  world  was  willing 
to  follow  in  his  train  if  only  the  one  obnoxious  tenet 
of  the  incarnation  could  be  so  modified  as  to  reconcile 
Christianity  with  the  principle  of  heathen  religion. 

To  this  tast  Arius  addressed  himseH  in  aU  earnest- 
ness, and  with  singular  powers  of  influence  and  even 
fascination.  In  his  theology  God  is  conceived  in  his  . 
absolute  transcendence  as  at  an  infinite  distance  from  ' 
the  world  and  humanity,  and  in  his  solitary  grandeur 
forever  abides  beyond  the  possibility  of  communion 
with  any  creature.  For  the  purpose  of  creating  the 
world  He  calls  into  existence  a  highly  endowed  super- 
natural being  of  a  different  essence  from  His  own,  who 
yet  participates  to  some  extent  in  the  attributes  of 
Godhead,  and  is  therefore  worthy  of  being  called  a 
god.  In  reality  He  is  neither  God  nor  man,  but 
stands  midway  between  the  two,  as  far  below  the  one 


ARIAN  IDEA    OF  REVELATION.  87 

as  He  is  exalted  above  the  other.  Because  of  the  in- 
feriority and  limitation  of  his  nature  compared  with 
that  of  Deity,  He  is  not  able  to  perfectly  comprehend 
the  character  of  God.  What  He  sees  and  knows  of 
God  is  after  a  measure  proportionate  to  His  capacity, 
and  the  revelation  which  He  imparts  to  man  is  still 
further  reduced  and  limited  by  the  weakness  of  hiunan 
faculties.  God  therefore  remains  in  His  inmost  char- 
acter unknown  and  unknowable;  revelation  becomes 
a  regulative  principle  of  conduct,  but  is  no  longer  a 
ground  for  communion  between  the  human  and  the  di- 
vine. Union  with  Deity,  according  to  such  a  theology, 
is  impossible.  The  supernatural  being  whom  Arius 
sets  forth  as  a  mediator  between  God  and  man,  does 
not  unite  but  separates  them,  for  He  serves  to  reveal 
the  infinite  impassable  gulf  that  lies  between  them. 

The  system  of  Arius  was  in  its  principle  a  reversion 
to  Jewish  deism,  as  if  it  had  been  the  highest  type  of 
human  thought  concerning  the  nature  of  Deity.  But 
it  was  also  a  system  inferior  to  Judaism  and  even 
to  Mohammedanism,  for  it  was  weakened  rather  than 
strengthened  by  its  adherence  to  Christ  at  all.  In 
Jewish  and  Mohammedan  theology  the  world  is  at 
least  created  directly  by  God  Himself,  whereas  accord- 
ing to  Arius,  creation  is  the  work  of  a  being  inferior  to 
God.  The  door  was  thus  opened  for  a  return  to  poly- 
theism, and  there  was  no  obstacle  to  the  introduction 
of  many  such  beings,  inferior  to  God  and  yet  higher 
than  man,  who  should  serve  as  intermediaries  in  the 
economy  of  external  nature  or  of  the  spiritual  life. 

If  it  seems  strange  that  a  system  like  this  could 
have  grown  up  within  the  church  and  have  spread 
far  and  wide,  it  is  only  necessary  to  recall  how  strong 
was  the  hold  of  the  dying  heathenism  over  the  im- 


88.  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

agination,  or  how,  at  a  later  time,  Islamism  snatched 
away  a  vast  Christian  population  and  took  possession 
of  what  had  once  been  the  fairest  possessions  of 
eastern  Christendom.  In  both  cases  the  rationale 
of  the  process  was  the  same.  Humanity,  overcome 
with  the  sense  of  sin,  and  struck  with  fear  and  terror 
as  it  contemplated  the  judgments  of  God  in  the  world, 
was  under  the  control  of  motives  bred  by  a  diseased 
and  guilty  conscience  in.  its  thought  of  God,  and  could 
not  accept  the  pure  consciousness  of  Christ,  with  his 
filial  love  and  perfect  trust  toward  the  Father,  as  the 
normal  principle  of  true  religion.  Rather  than  ac- 
cept it,  men  adopted  methods  of  their  own  by  which 
to  overcome  the  divine  wrath,  or  acquiesced  in  any 
arrangement,  however  superficial,  by  which  the  con- 
sequences of  sin  might  be  evaded.  Such  was  the 
principle  of  Judaism,  in  its  popular  aspects  a  religion 
in  which  God  was  believed  to  be  propitiated  by  sacri- 
fices. Such  was  Mohammedanism,  with  its  doctrine 
of  election,  in  which  the  followers  of  the  prophet 
took  refuge  as  a  shelter  from  the  waves  of  the  divine 
anger ;  and  akin  to  them  was  Arianism,  —  a  symptom 
that  the  popular  Christianity  was  shifting  its  basis 
from  love  to  fear,  and  was  thus  endangering  what 
was  highest  and  most  distinctive  in  the  religion  of 
Christ.  Whether  God  was  present  or  absent,  whether 
humanity  had  been  redeemed  or  still  lay  under  the 
curse  of  sin,  whether  the  incarnation  had  revealed  the 
inmost  nature  of  God,  as  written  in  the  nature  of 
man,  or  the  revelation  made  by  Christ  was  an  official 
code  of  duty  promulgated  by  some  high  celestial  am- 
bassador, —  such  were  the  issues  involved  in  the  Arian 
controversy. 

The  excitement  which  shook  the  church  as  if  to  its 


ATHANASIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY.     89 

very  foundations,  and  which  threatened  to  destroy  its 
unity,  on  which  Constantine  rested  his  hopes  for  the 
consolidation  of  the  empire,  indicates  the  gravity  of 
the  crisis  which  the  teaching  of  Arius  had  precipi- 
tated. In  this  critical  hour,  it  was  not  Rome  that 
came  to  the  rescue.  She  was  as  silent,  it  has  been  ' 
said,  as  St.  Peter  at  the  door  of  Caiaphas  when  Christ 
was  delivered  up  to  the  power  of  the  High  Priest.  It 
was  a  Greek  theologian,  going  forth  from  the  home  of 
Greek  theology,  who  uttered  the  word  to  which  the 
heart  of  the  church  ultimately  responded. 

According  to  Athanasius,  the  Christian  revelation 
is  summed  up  in  the  divine  name  of  the  Father,  the 
Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  Into  this  name,  and  into 
the  actual  and  living  relationships  which  it  implies, 
those  who  accept  the  religion  of  Christ  were  to  be 
baptized.  It  was  the  formula  of  benediction,  the 
ever-recurring  refrain  in  the  solemn  and  inspiring 
worship  of  the  church.  It  declared  of  God  that  His 
essential  character  was  love.  Deity  in  the  inmost 
recess  of  His  being,  in  that  mysterious  background 
of  existence,  as  ancient  thought  conceived  it,  whence 
sprang  the  divine  consciousness  and  thought  and  will, 
was  henceforth  known  truly  and  absolutely  as  the 
Father.  The  deepest  and  most  endearing  of  human 
relationships  found  its  basis  in  the  divine  nature,  and 
received  its  consecration  from  an  eternal  prototype. 

The  revelation  of  God  as  the  Father  was  made 
through  the  Son.  He  who  became  incarnate  in  the 
fullness  of  time  had  been  from  all  eternity  with  the 
Father,  as  His  second  self,  in  whom  the  Father  knew 
Himself  and  saw  Himself  reflected.  By  Him  the 
world  had  been  created ;  upon  its  constitution  had 
been  stamped  the  impress  of  the  divine  nature;  and 


90  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY. 

in  humanity  was  implanted  the  image  of  God,  through 
which  it  was  made  capable  in  its  totality  of  attaining 
the  divine  likeness.  All  things  in  heaven  and  earth 
live  and  move  and  have  their  being  in  Him,  —  the 
indwelling  God,  who  is  all  and  in  all.  In  the  incar- 
nation God  not  only  reveals  Himself  to  man,  but  also 
makes  known  to  man  his  true  nature  and  constitution. 
The  incarnation  is  the  union  of  humanity  with  Deity, 
and  the  divine  life  of  Christ,  who  is  the  head  and 
representative  of  humanity,  is  diffused  through  all  its 
members.  Humanity,  in  all  its  fortunes  and  aspects, 
is  one  whole,  and  as  such  has  been  redeemed  in  Christ, 
who  carries  it,  as  it  were,  in  Himself,  —  in  its  sin  and 
guilt  as  well  as  in  its  exaltation  and  glory.  In  Him 
the  human  race  has  died  to  sin  and  risen  again  to  life 
and  immortality.  Life  has  been  shown  stronger  than 
death,  righteousness  mightier  than  sin.  In  Him  has 
been  manifested  the  apotheosis  of  humanity,  its  re- 
demption, salvation,  and  deification. 

The  incarnation  made  possible  the  life  of  the 
Spirit,  through  whom  mankind  becomes  increasingly 
conscious  of  its  relationship  to  the  Father  and  the 
Son.  The  holy  and  infinite  Spirit  is  the  life  of  the 
Father  and  the  Son  as  they  are  bound  together  in 
perfect  communion  and  fellowship  ;  the  work  of  the 
Spirit  is  to  lead  men  to  participate  in  this  life  which 
is  in  God.  The  Spirit  abides  in  humanity  as  the  law 
of  its  progress;  He  acts  upon  all  men;  but  He  in- 
dwells only  in  those  who  have  been  renewed  after  the 
image  of  Him  that  created  them.^ 

Such  a  conception  of  the  nature  of  the  triune  God- 
head as  existing  from  eternity  and  manifested  in  time, 

^  On  the  immanent  trinity,  cf.  Voigt,  Jdhrh.  fur  Deutsche 
Theol,  1858. 


THE  NICENE   CREED.  91 

demanded  that  its  members  should  be  regarded  as  in 
their  essence  one  and  coequal,  and  as  forming  together 
the  one  absolute  or  infinite  personality  whom  we  call 
God.^  It  was  a  result  of  Arianism  that  it  showed  to 
Athanasius  the  nature  of  the  danger  which  threatened 
the  integrity  of  the  Christian  revelation,  and  the  step 
also  which  must  be  taken  to  guard  against  it.  As 
the  tendency  of  Arianism  was  to  separate  between 
Christ  and  the  Father,  between  the  world  and  God, 
so  the  aim  of  Athanasius  was  to  present  them  as 
sharing  alike  in  the  one  divine  essence,  and  thus  retain 
the  world  and  humanity  in  close  organic  relationship 
with  Deity.  The  word  which  he  used  for  the  purpose 
of  defining  the  relation  of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  — 
the  6fjLoov(rLo<s,  —  was,  to  the  minds  of  many  even  who 
did  not  sympathize  with  Arius,  a  damaged  and  sus- 
picious word.  It  had  been  first  used  by  Sabellius, 
and  then  by  Paul  of  Samosata,  and  had  thus  been 
identified  with  the  heresies  of  a  past  age  which  the 
church  had  condemned.  To  the  minds  of  the  ma- 
jority of  Eastern  bishops  ^  it  stiU  savored  of  the  pan- 
theism with  which  it  had  been  first  associated.  It 
was  the  one  word  which  was  most  obnoxious  to  the 
Arians,  the  significance  of  which  their  dialectic  could 
not  evade.  It  was  irreconcilable  with  the  Arian 
trinity,  in  which  three  beings  were  loosely  associated 
in  polytheistic  fashion.  It  presented  God  in  the  rich- 
ness of  a  complex  nature,  triple  in  His  unity  and  one 
in  His  triplicity,  in  opposition  to  Judaism,  with  its 
meagre,  impoverished  notion  of  imity  as  identical  with 
singleness  of  essence. 

^  Liddon,  Bampton  Lectures^  p.  37. 

2  For  the  attitude  of  the  Asiatic  bishops  to  the  Nicene  con- 
troversy, see  Gwatkin,  Studies  of  Arianism,  pp.  90-92. 


92  THE   GREEK   THEOLOGY. 

The  o/ioouVtos  was  admitted  into  the  creed  of  the 
church  at  its  first  general  council ;  but  it  was  not  on 
the  authority  of  the  council  that  the  church  received 
it.  The  synod  of  Nicsea  was  the  beginning  of  a  long 
controversy,  in  which  Athanasius  bore  the  principal 
part,  and  in  which  the  question  was  argued  with  all 
the  subtilty  of  the  oriental  mind,  —  whether  Christ 
was  of  the  same  essence  with  the  Father,  or  of  a 
similar  essence,  or  of  a  different  essence.  The  victory 
of  the  o/xoovo-tos  was  at  last  a  victory  of  the  reason  ;  it 
was  the  triumph  of  the  Greek  theology  over  oriental 
theosophies,  whether  Jewish  or  heathen ;  it  stood  for 
the  sign  by  which  the  church  had  overcome  the 
heathen  mind,  as  Christian  faith  had  already  over- 
come the  force  of  persecution  and  the  sword. 

But  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  trinity  could  not 
have  triumphed  over  heathen  thought,  had  it  not  also 
been  the  fulfillment  of  all  that  was  true  in  Greek  phi- 
lo3ophy.  In  the  formula  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Spirit,  as  three  distinct  and  coequal  members  in  the 
one  divine  essence,  there  was  the  recognition  and  the 
reconciliation  of  the  philosophical  schools  which  had 
divided  the  ancient  world.  In  the  idea  of  the  eternal 
Father  the  oriental  mind  recognized  what  it  liked  to 
call  the  profound  abyss  of  being,  that  which  lies  back 
of  all  phenomena,  the  hidden  mystery  which  lends  awe 
to  human  minds  seeking  to  know  the  divine.  In  the 
doctrine  of  the  eternal  Son  revealing  the  Father,  im- 
manent in  nature  and  humanity  as  the  life  and  light 
shining  through  all  created  things,  the  divine  rea- 
son, in  which  the  human  reason  shares,  was  the  recog- 
nition of  the  truth  after  which  Plato  and  Aristotle 
and  the  Stoics  were  struggling,  —  the  tie  which  binds 
the  creation  to  God  in  the  closest  organic  relationship. 


DOCTRINE   OF   THE  HOLY  SPIRIT.  93 

In  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  church  guarded 
against  any  pantheistic  confusion  of  God  with  the 
world  by  upholding  the  life  of  the  manifested  Deity 
as  essentially  ethical  or  spiritual,  revealing  itself  in 
humanity  in  its  highest  form,  only  in  so  far  as  hu- 
manity realized  its  calling,  and  through  the  Spirit  en- 
tered into  communion  with  the  Father  and  the  Son. 

It  is  true,  as  has  been  often  noticed,  that  the  ancient 
church  dwelt  chiefly  upon  Christ  as  the  indwelling 
Deity  who  manifested  the  Father,  and  that  the  idea  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  not  formally  presented  with  equal 
prominence.^  But  it  was  necessary  that  the  incarna- 
tion should  become  the  full  possession  of  the  Christian 
consciousness  before  the  life  of  the  Spirit  could  be 
understood  or  appreciated.  To  the  infinite  Spirit  it 
belongs,  in  the  economy  of  the  trinity,  to  lead  human- 
ity into  all  truth.  But  the  "  ways  of  the  Spirit  "  had 
yet  to  be  disclosed  more  fully  to  the  reason  in  the  long 
and  painful  process  of  human  experience,  —  the  world 
that  then  was  had  to  pass  away,  and  a  new  world  to 
arise,  and  grow,  and  reach  maturity,  before  the  life  of 
God  as  the  Spirit  could  be  revealed  in  humanity  as  its 
actual  possession,  by  which  it  shares  while  on  earth  in 
the  glory  of  the  eternal  trinity,  and  moves  forward  to 
its  destiny  in  attaining  the  fullness  of  Christ.  It  has 
been  given  to  us  to  read  in  the  church's  history,  since 
the  new  world  in  western  Europe  began  its  career, 
the  larger  record  of  the  continuous  divine  revelation, 
and  to  trace  the  process  by  which  the  Spirit  has  been 
convincing  of  sin,  and  of  righteousness,  and  of  judg- 
tnent.     As  we  survey  our  inheritance  in  the  past,  we 

1  For  a  summary  of  the  views  of  "  thoughtful  men "  upon  the 
subject  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  see  Greg.  Naz.,  Oratio  38,  De  Spiritu 
Sanctu. 


94  THE   GREEK  THEOLOGY, 

are  unrolling  what  to  the  Fathers  of  the  ancient  church 
was  a  future  hidden  from  their  eyes.  In  the  fresh 
enthusiasm  of  a  great  conviction,  they  dwelt  upon  the 
glorious  consummation  of  all  things  in  Christ,  and 
were  inclined  to  foreshorten  the  long  perspective  of 
human  history.  It  is  as  though  to  them  the  words  of 
Christ  were  more  especially  addressed :  "  I  have  many 
things  to  say  unto  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now." 


./ 


THE  LATIN    THEOLOGY. 


Etenim  cum  deberetis  magistri  esse  propter  tempus:  rursum  indigetis  ut 
vos  doceamiai  quae  slut  elemeuta  exordii  sermonum  Dei>  —Heb,  y.  12. 


CHRONOLOGICAX.  TABLE. 


A.  D. 

14.  Death  of  Augustus  Caesar. 
150.  [c]    Montanism  and  Gnosticism. 
160.   Apuleius  flourished. 

201.  (?)   TertuUian  becomes  a  Montanist. 

202.  Irenseus  died. 
235.  Hippolytus  died. 
249-251.   Decius,  Emperor. 
258.    Cyprian  died  a  martyr. 
306-337.   Constantine  the  Great. 
311-415.   Donatist  Controversy. 

312.   Toleration  granted  to  the  church. 

323.    Constantine  sole  Emperor. 

331-420.   Jerome. 

333.  Jamblichus  died. 

374-397.   Ambrose,  Bishop  of  Milan. 

379-395.   Theodosius  the  Great,  Emperor. 

387.   Augustine's  Conversion. 

396-430.   Augustine,  Bishop  of  Hippo. 

397-407.   Chrysostom,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople. 

412-431.   Pelagian  Controversy. 

412-444.   Cyril,  Patriarch  of  Alexandria. 

429.   Nestorius,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople. 

429.   Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  died. 

431.   Third  General  Council. 

440-461.  Leo  the  Great,  Bishop  of  Borne. 

451.  Fourth  General  Council. 

485.   Proclus  died. 

653.   Fifth  General  Council. 

622.   Flight  of  Mohammed. 

680.   Sixth  General  Council 


THE  LATIN   THEOLOGY. 


In  the  Latin  church,  theology  was  subordinated  to 
the  requirements  of  an  ecclesiastical  hierarchy.  The 
Roman  church  gave  birth  to  no  system  of  theology. 
It  devoted  its  energies  from  the  first  to  the  work  of 
perfecting  its  organization  and  of  exercising  its  ca- 
pacity for  discipline  and  control.  The  foundations  of 
the  later  primacy  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  date  back  to 
a  very  early  stage  of  Christian  history.  Roman  con- 
troversialists have  not  been  very  far  wrong  in  making 
the  preparation  for  the  Roman  supremacy  almost  co- 
eval with  the  birth  of  the  Roman  church. 

During  the  second  century,  the  Latin  church  was 
under  the  influence  of  Greek  thought,  and  for  some 
time  longer  the  echoes  of  Greek  theology  continued  to 
be  heard  in  its  principal  writers.  It  was  rather  as 
souvenirs  of  a  culture  which  had  been  abandoned,  than 
as  living  and  profound  intuitions  of  thought,  that 
Greek  ideas  appear  among  the  Latin  writers  of  the 
second  and  third  centuries.  However  this  may  be, 
Christianity  had  come  to  the  West  from  the  East.  It 
was  Greek  missionary  enterprise  and  not  Roman  that 
carried  the  Christian  faith  to  Gaul.  The  writino^s  of 
apostles,  the  narratives  of  the  life  of  Christ,  ha^  ap- 
peared in  the  Greek  language  ;  even  the  ritual  of  the 
Roman  church,  so  far  as  one  existed,  may  have  been 
in  Greek,  and  the  circumstance  mentioned  by  the  his- 


98  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

torian  Socrates,  that  during  the  first  centuries  there 
was  no  public  preaching  in  Rome,  may  be  explained 
by  the  absence  of  the  vernacular  in  the  Christian  as- 
semblies. But  it  was  impossible  that  the  Greek  influ- 
ence should  long  dominate  over  a  spirit  so  deeply 
imbued  with  native  characteristics  as  the  Roman.  In 
the  course  of  the  third  century,  the  Latin  language 
was  generally  substituted  for  the  Greek,  and  the  pro- 
cess began  by  which  the  two  churches  were  to  grow 
more  widely  apart,  until  all  Christian  fellowship  be- 
tween them  should  come  to  an  end. 

As  in  the  history  of  Greek  theology  the  continuity 
with  Greek  philosophy  was  not  broken ;  so  in  the  his- 
tory of  Latin  Christianity  the  continuity  may  be 
traced  with  pagan  Rome  in  its  religious  as  well  as  its 
political  aspects. 

I. 

The  early  religion  of  pagan  Rome  discloses  no  prin- 
ciples which  distinguish  it  in  any  marked  way  from 
other  local  religions.  It  has  enriched  in  no  way  our 
knowledge  of  the  religious  consciousness  of  man.  It 
was  essentially  a  borrowed  product,  with  no  traditions 
of  its  own  running  back  to  the  origin  of  things.  It 
was  a  formal  thing,  consisting  mainly  in  the  scrupu- 
lous performance  of  a  ritual.  It  did  not  stimulate 
devotion,  or  give  rise  to  hymnody,  or  lead  to  mystic 
excesses.  It  rested  on  a  belief  in  the  power  of  the 
gods  which,  by  the  use  of  right  methods,  might  be 
made  available  for  the  requirements  of  Roman  ambi- 
tion. It  was  a  religion  grounded  on  fear  as  its  motive 
and  sanction.  The  Romans  did  not  cultivate  friendly 
or  intimate  relations  with  their  gods  as  did  the  Greeks ; 
there  was  no  sense  of  the  constant  nearness  of  a  divine 


REVIVAL   OF  HEATHEN  RELIGION.  99 

benignant  presence  as  is  seen  in  Greek  mythology. 
The  Roman  kept  his  gods  at  a  distance,  and  avoided 
as  a  calamity  the  actual  vision  of  a  supernatural  being. 
The  chief  innovation  which  Rome  introduced  into  re- 
ligion was  in  illustrating  its  connection  with  the  for- 
tunes of  the  state.  Religion  became  an  affair  of  the 
government,  to  be  administered  chiefly  in  its  interest. 
When  the  conquests  of  Rome  had  demonstrated  the 
value  of  Roman  deities  to  the  state,  it  was  only  natu- 
ral and  fitting  that  the  highest  officer  of  the  state 
should  assume  a  religious  character,  and,  as  Pontifex 
Maximus,  preside  over  the  administration  of  the  sacred 
deposit  by  which  the  priesthood  deciphered  the  secrets 
of  the  future. 

The  religion  of  ancient  Rome,  despite  its  lack  of 
interest  in  theology,  could  not  remain  apart  from  the 
larger  movements  of  thought,  at  a  time  when  the  hu- 
man mind  was  so  widely  occupied  with  religious  issues. 
From  the  time  of  Augustus  it  had  begun  to  recover 
from  the  disintegrating  effects  of  the  rationalism  which 
had  prevailed  in  the  last  days  of  the  republic.^  To 
some  extent  it  had  been  clarified  and  elevated  by  the 
Stoic  philosophy,  so  that  it  seemed  not  unworthy  of 
the  respect  and  devotion  of  a  man  like  Marcus  Au- 
relius.  But  the  Stoic  interpretation  of  polytheism,  at- 
tractive as  it  might  have  been  to  poetical  minds  or  to 
the  highly  educated,  must  have  seemed  to  the  mass 
of  ordinary  men  like  explaining  religion  away.  The 
gods,  as  the  Stoics  viewed  them,  were  no  longer  per- 
sonal beings,  but  rather  impersonal  manifestations  of 
the  presence  of  the  universal  spirit  which  penetrates 
and  fills  all  things,  so  many  different  names,  as  it 
were,  for  the  activity  of  the  divine  soul  of  the  uni- 
1  Boissier,  La  Religion  Romaine,  ii.  q^7. 


100  THE  LATIN   THEOLOGY. 

verse.  It  was  through  the  influence  of  Platonisni, 
which  had  been  made  popular  in  Rome  by  the  writ- 
ings of  Apuleius  during  the  second  century,  that  poly- 
theism became  once  more  a  living  belief  affecting  pro- 
foundly all  classes  of  society.  Apuleius  proclaimed 
the  Platonic  notion  regarding  the  nature  of  Deity  and 
His  relation  to  the  world,  a  being  who  exists  in  sol- 
itary majesty  outside  of  the  world,  who,  having  ac- 
complished creation  by  an  act  of  omnipotence,  secludes 
Himself  at  a  distance  from  all  communication  or  con- 
nection with  it.  Thus  the  tie  which  unites  God  to  na- 
ture is  broken  :  on  the  one  side  is  God,  and  on  the  other 
man,  and  a  vast  abyss  lies  between  them.  To  bridge 
this  abyss,  Apuleius  employed  as  intermediaries  the 
gods  of  ancient  religion,  —  no  longer  names  only  for 
spiritual  functions  as  the  Stoics  thought,  but  real  ex- 
istences, who  from  their  lowest  form,  as  the  demons 
standing  near  to  men,  rise  by  gradations  to  the  throne 
of  infinite  Deity.  This  was  the  underlying  principle 
which  everywhere  quickened  polytheism  into  activity, 
the  spirit  in  the  air  when  the  writings  of  the  first  dis- 
tinctively Latin  fathers  were  beginning  to  appear. 

It  was  inevitable  that  in  the  transition  from  heathen- 
ism to  Christianity,  the  influence  of  such  tendencies 
should  be  perpetuated,  and  in  some  degree  modify  the 
character  of  the  new  religion.  The  practical  bent  of 
the  Roman  mind,  the  love  of  order,  the  genius  for 
government,  were  destined,  like  the  Greek  love  for  phi- 
losophy, to  find  a  home  in  the  Christian  church.  The 
Roman  Christian  may  have  begun  very  early  to  dream 
of  the.  possibility  that  his  new  worship  might  be  a 
substitute  for  the  pagan  state  cultus,  —  the  Christian 
hierarchy  standing  in  the  same  close  relation  to  the 
empire,  usur]^  the  place  of  the  sacerdotal  machinery  of 


ROMAN  IDEA    OF  CHRISTIANITY.         101 

paganism.  For  the  empire  itself  the  Christian  con- 
verts continued  to  cherish  admiration  and  reverence. 
To  their  minds  it  was  doing  a  divine  work  in  breaking 
down  the  barriers  of  a  selfish  individualism,  bringing 
the  nations  into  a  common  fellowship,  and  consoli- 
dating them  into  one  great  people ;  extending  to  all, 
rich  and  poor,  equal  privileges  under  a  system  of  uni- 
form law.  This  was  also,  as  the  Roman  Christian 
conceived  it,  with  the  necessary  modifications,  the  idea 
of  Christianity  itself.  The  religion  of  Christ  was  to 
him  the  "  new  law,"  and  in  obedience  to  rightful 
authority  lay  the  principle  of  redemption.  Latin 
Christianity  gravitated  naturally,  as  if  by  instinct,  to- 
ward that  conception  of  the  church  as  an  external 
kingdom  which  sprang  out  of  the  Jewish  conception 
of  Messiah,  and  of  which  the  apostles  of  Christ  had 
dreamed  while  they  were  striving  about  the  places  of 
honor  which  it  offered.  It  is  possible  that  a  similar 
idea  underlay  the  organization  of  the  church  in  Jeru- 
salem, where  James,  in  virtue  of  his  relationship  as  the 
brother  of  Christ,  became  His  successor  in  the  head- 
ship of  the  messianic  kingdom.  Certainly  thoughts 
like  these  were  current  in  the  Roman  church  of  the 
second  century.  The  Clementine  recognitions,  —  the 
first  Christian  romance,  as  it  has  been  called,  —  even 
though  of  heretical  origin,  is  valuable  as  bearing  wit- 
ness to  germinal  ideas  which  were  afterward  to  ex- 
pand into  institutions.  Its  unknown  writer  makes 
Rome  take  the  place  of  Jerusalem  as  henceforth  the 
sacred  centre  of  Christendom,  and  St.  Peter  take  the 
place  of  St.  James  as  the  visible  head  of  the  new 
society. 

Ideas  not  dissimilar,  though  in  some  respects  more 
limited  in  their  range,  had  occupied  the  mind  of  Ig- 


102  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

natius,  the  Bishop  of  Antioch.  Though  not  a  Roman 
by  birth  or  education,  he  had  the  same  conservative 
anxiety  for  the  welfare  of  the  church  as  an  organized 
society.  In  his  desire  for  unity,  the  only  guarantee 
of  strength,  he  conceived  each  local  church  as  having 
its  hierarchy  and  its  primate.  He  may  be  said  to 
have  given  the  first  rough  outline  of  what  was  later 
known  as  the  apostolical  succession,  as  well  as  of  the 
Roman  supremacy.  In  his  scheme  of  the  hierarchy 
there  are  bishops,  presbyters,  and  deacons ;  but  the 
bishops  are  regarded  as  the  successors  and  represen- 
tatives of  Christ,  while  the  presbyters  hold  the  rank  of 
apostles.  Each  local  church  was  thus  to  reproduce 
the  picture  of  Christ  and  his  apostles ;  to  the  bishop 
was  due  the  absolute  submission  of  conscience  and 
will,  as  if  to  Christ  in  person,  and  the  presbyters  were 
to  be  attuned  to  the  bishops  as  the  strings  to  the  harp. 
Ignatius  (ob.  115)  lived  before  the  idea  of  a  Catholic 
church  had  been  fully  recognized,  and  his  conception 
of  the  church  implied  only  an  aggregation  of  highly 
organized  ecclesiastical  atoms,  each  one  complete  in 
itself,  but  without  any  visible  tie  binding  them  organ- 
ically to  each  other.  This  defect  in  his  scheme  was 
supplied  by  the  Roman  conception  of  a  hierarchy  for  the 
universal  church,  with  the  Bishop  of  Rome  as  the  rep- 
resentative of  Christ  to  the  whole  body  of  believers. 

The  Roman  Christians  not  only  saw  no  incongruity 
in  the  church  or  kingdom  as  having  a  visible  head,  but 
could  not  understand  the  existence  of  a  visible  society 
without  it.  To  think  of  the  church  as  having  an  in- 
visible king  with  no  delegated  representative  on  earth, 
was  to  the  Roman  mind  to  leave  it  in  an  indefinite,  in- 
tangible condition.  It  was  not  enough  to  talk  of  the 
real,  though  spiritual,  presence  of  the  invisible  Christ 


LATIN  CONCEPTION  OF   THE   CHURCH,    103 

as  a  bond  of  unity,  the  principle  of  all  life  and  growth ; 
a  divine-human  fellowship  of  Christian  disciples,  —  a 
school  for  learners  under  an  invisible  instructor, — was 
to  the  Roman  mind  no  church  at  all.  The  church 
must  have  a  visible  centre  and  a  visible  circumference : 
the  terms  of  admittance  and  of  exclusion  must  be  ex- 
actly defined ;  the  nature  of  the  powers  delegated  to 
its  officers  must  be  explicitly  determined ;  there  must 
be  uniformity  of  practice  and  uniformity  of  opinion  as 
well ;  there  must  be  stringent  methods  of  securing 
obedience  and  subordination, — all  this,  and  even  more, 
if  the  church  was  to  be  the  kingdom  of  God,  a  power 
of  God  unto  salvation. 

Such  was  the  spirit  and  aim  of  the  Latin  church  as 
traced  in  the  Christian  literature  of  the  first  three 
centuries.  If  we  compare  the  Epistle  to  Diognetus 
with  the  Epistle  of  Clement  of  Rome,  contemporaneous 
'  as  they  were  among  the  earliest  writings  of  the  post- 
apostolic  age,  we  may  note  the  divergence  between 
Greek  and  Latin  Christianity  as  clearly  marked  as  at 
any  later  stage  in  history.  The  author  of  the  Epistle 
to  Diognetus  is  occupied  with  the  work  and  person  of 
Christ,  with  the  endeavor  to  read  the  new  revelation 
in  its  largest,  most  spiritual  relationships.  In  the  Ro- 
man Clement's  writings,  we  recognize  the  familiar 
strain  so  often  repeated  in  later  literature  down  to  our 
own  age,  how  Christ  had  sent  apostles,  and  apostles 
had  appointed  bishops  and  deacons,  and  how  all  this 
had  been  done  to  prevent  strife  about  ecclesiastical 
offices.  The  supreme  question  in  Clement's  mind  con- 
cerns orders  in  the  ministry,  the  necessity  of  obedi- 
ence, and  subordination.  The  contrast  is  further  seen 
if  we  compare  TertuUian  with  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
Cyprian  with  Origen,  or  Ambrose  with  Athanasius. 


104  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

With  the  one  class  of  writers  the  constantly  recurring 
burden  is  the  divine  authority  of  the  established  order, 
the  necessity  of  uniformity  in  opinion,  the  claims  of 
tradition,  the  need  of  some  centre  of  authority,  the 
terms  of  entrance  into  the  church  or  of  exclusion  from 
its  fold,  the  power  of  the  keys ;  in  a  word,  all  that  is 
implied  in  ecclesiastical  administration.  For  these 
things  it  is  not  to  the  theologians  of  the  Greek  church 
in  the  second  or  third  century  that  we  must  go,  if 
one  is  impressed  with  their  importance  or  in  search  of 
weapons  in  ecclesiastical  controversy.  In  the  Greek 
church  we  are  in  a  different  atmosphere  altogether. 

By  the  middle  of  the  second  century  a  great  advance 
had  been  made  in  the  work  of  organizing  and  consol- 
idating the  Christian  communities  scattered  through- 
out the  empire.  The  idea  had  taken  root  of  a  Catholic 
church  which,  in  its  earliest  form,  as  it  appeared  in 
Greek  thought,  was  the  fellowship  of  those  in  whom 
Christ  had  been  revealed,  or  in  whom  He  was  uncon- 
sciously active  ;  in  the  Latin  mind,  an  organization 
which  was  not  to  be  cut  short  in  its  career  by  the  sud- 
den reappearance  of  Christ,  but  as  destined  to  grow 
and  spread  throughout  the  empire,  was  worthy  of  the 
highest  efforts  of  the  Koman  genius  for  administra- 
tion. By  this  time  also  it  is  evident  that  the  prin- 
ciple which  inspired  the  Latin  method  must  have 
already  begun  to  yield  its  fruits  in  the  separation  of 
the  clergy  from  the  body  of  the  people,  in  the  grow- 
ing tendency  to  regard  them  as  a  sacred  caste,  as 
rulers  of  the  church  by  soi^e  external  law  of  divine 
right,  instead  of  ministers  aikd  organs  of  the  Christian 
community  in  whose  recognition  lay  the  foundation  of 
all  authority.     Already  men  were  beginning  to  iden- 


tify the  church  with  the  c. 


ergy,  to  regiu'd  the  most 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF  MONTANISM.  105 

precious  promises  of  Christ  as  made  to  the  apostles,  in 
their  capacity  as  ecclesiastical  administrators  handing 
down  a  deposit  to  their  successors  in  office.  \ 

That  such  a  view  of  the  church  was  repugnant  to 
many,  and  especially  to  the  oriental  communities,  is 
apparent  from  the  protest  made  in  the  Montanistic 
movement  which  originated  in  the  East  about  the 
middle  of  the  second  century,  and  whose  influence 
was  felt,  not  only  in  Asia  Minor,  but  in  North  Africa 
and  Gaul.  It  is  not  necessary  here  to  enter  into  a  dis- 
cussion of  its  character,  or  seek  to  disentangle  its 
original  purpose,  so  much  obscured  by  the  angry  decla- 
mations of  its  opponents.  That  the  movement  was  in 
some  respects  a  retrograde  one,  that  it  cherished  prin- 
ciples which  would  have  hindered  the  spread  of  gen- 
uine Christianity,  —  all  this  may  be  at  once  conceded. 
It  revived  the  old  belief,  which  was  fast  dying  out, 
that  the  coming  of  Christ  in  the  flesh  was  near  at 
hand,  as  the  most  fundamental  tenet  of  Christian 
faith  and  practice ;  it  introduced  a  rigid  and  gloomy 
asceticism  as  a  preparation  for  the  disasters  which 
would  precede  His  advent,  and  by  its  false  enthusiasm 
gave  birth  to  much  disorder.  But  the  main  signifi- 
cance of  Montanism  in  this  connection  was  its  as- 
sertion of  a  truth  to  which  the  church  had  not  yet 
awakened,  or  which  was  lost  sight  of  under  the  in- 
creasing activity  in  the  development  of  ecclesiastical 
order.  The  Montanists  declared  the  active  presence 
in  the  church  of  a  Holy  Spirit  who,  since  Christ's  de- 
parture, had  come  to  carry  on  His  work.  It  was  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  not  apostles,  who  was  the  true  and 
only  successor  of  Christ,  the  only  prelate,  because  He 
alone  succeeds  Christ.^  It  was  the  work  of  the  Spirit 
^  Tertullian,  De  virg.  veL,  c.  i. 


106  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

to  lead  men  into  all  truth,  to  truth  which  had  not  yet 
been  discerned,  to  break  down  the  power  of  custom  and 
tradition  when  they  obstructed  the  process  of  a  fuller 
revelation.  The  organs  through  which  the  Spirit 
spoke  were  not  necessarily  the  clergy;  any  man  or 
woman  might  be  chosen  to  declare  the  Spirit's  mes- 
sage to  the  churches.  So  far  did  the  Montanists 
carry  their  opposition  to  the  encroachments  of  the 
hierarchy,  that  women  rather  than  men  were  their 
favorite  oracles,  and  it  is  even  possible  that  women 
may  have  been  set  apart  to  the  sacred  offices  of  the 
church. 

The  movement  was  welcome  to  different  people  for 
different  reasons.  Irenseus  plead  in  its  behalf  because 
its  doctrine  of  the  coming  of  Christ  commended  itself 
to  his  judgment.  TertuUian,  after  having  been  a 
Catholic  Christian,  became  a  Montanist,  and  found  in 
the  exclusiveness  of  the  sect,  with  its  rigid  protest 
against  the  world  and  the  flesh,  elements  that  were 
congenial  to  the  fierce  vehemence  of  his  natural  tem- 
per. He  never  seems  to  have  got  on  well  with  the 
Roman  clergy,  and  in  the  freedom  of  the  Spirit,  as  the 
Montanists  proclaimed  it,  may  have  found  an  inward 
satisfaction  never  experienced  in  the  Catholic  church 
as  he  had  known  it.  But  Montanism  was  doomed  to 
failure  from  its  origin.  Too  many  false  conceptions 
mingled  with  the  truth  which  it  held :  it  lacked  a 
spirit  of  soberness  and  self-control ;  in  its  idea  of  the 
church  as  a  faithful  few,  holding  together  till  Christ 
should  come  to  claim  them  as  His  own,  there  was  no 
working  theory  to  oppose  to  the  ambition  of  an  aspir- 
ing hierarchy.  The  church,  however,  did  not  fail  to 
take  lessons  from  a  movement  which,  as  a  sect,  it 
opposed  and  crushed.     Some  of  the  ascetic  regulations 


THEORY  OF  APOSTOLICAL   SUCCESSION.    107 

which  the  Montanists  were  the  first  to  advocate,  and 
more  particularly  the  dislike  to  science  and  art,  were 
domesticated  in  the  Catholic  regime.  After  the  strong 
protest  in  behalf  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  doctrine  could 
no  longer  remain  unheeded.  But  Rome  economized 
the  doctrine  to  its  own  advantage.  It  was  a  crisis  in 
the  history  of  ecclesiastical  development  when  it  came 
to  be  admitted  that  such  a  Spirit  as  the  Montanists 
described  did  indeed  continue  to  bring  gifts  to  the 
church,  but  connected  with  this  admission  was  the 
strenuous  assertion  of  Rome  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was 
tied  in  His  action  to  the  hierarchy,  and  spoke  only 
through  its  accredited  representatives.  The  bishops 
thus  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  sole  depositories  of 
the  Spirit's  presence,  and  in  accordance  with  this  be- 
lief grew  up  a  theory  that  the  decisions  of  councils 
composed  of  bishops  were  directly  given  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  inasmuch  as  they  were  given  by  the  voice  of  the 
united  episcopate. 

/  It  was  Cyi^rian,  the  famous  Bishop  of  Carthage  (ob. 
258),  who  first  enunciated  this  theory  explicitly,  who 
first  distinctly  taught  the  doctrine  of  apostolical  suc- 
cession, giving  to  it  a  form  that  made  it  easy  of  com- 
prehension, as  well  as  adapted  to  the  needs  springing 
out  of  the  growing  recognition  of  the  Catholicity  of 
the  church.  His  well-known  treatise,  entitled  "  The 
Unity  of  the  Church,"  may  be  regarded  as  the  charter 
of  the  institution  which  was  to  be  known  in  history  as 
the  Latin  or  Roman  Catholic  church.  In  Cyprian's 
view,  the  episcopate,  which  in  reality  constitutes  the 
church,  is  conceived  as  an  organic  whole  complete  in 
itself,  everywhere  diffused  and  endowed  with  the  di- 
vine powers  necessary  for  the  salvation  of  men.  To 
be  in  unity  with  the  bishop  has,  according  to  this  con- 


108  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

ception,  a  wider  significance  than  it  had  in  the  mind 
of  Ignatius,  —  it  implies  the  larger  relationship  with 
the  universal  body  of  the  episcopate,  of  which  the 
local  bishop  is  the  organ  or  representative. 

The  theory  of  Cyprian  had  its  defects  as  a  working 
policy,  however  it  may  for  a  time  have  commended  it- 
self to  Christian  sentiment.  It  did  not  meet  the  rising 
demand  for  a  head  and  centre  of  the  church  which 
should  give  to  the  episcopate  an  actual  and  visible 
unity.  It  asserted  the  equality  of  the  bishops  as  the 
representatives  of  the  apostles,  but  there  was  a  convic- 
tion in  the  mind  of  the  Roman  people  that  the  church 
was  entitled  to  have  not  only  representatives  of  the 
apostles,  but,  as  Ignatius  had  thought,  a  representative 
of  Christ  as  well.  Cyprian's  theory  called  attention, 
and  that  in  a  conspicuous  way,  to  the  majesty  of  the 
vacant  place  which  in  the  days  of  apostles  had  been 
filled  by  the  divine  Master.  The  same  method  of  ar- 
gument which  Cyprian  had  used,  in  demonstrating  the 
apostles  to  have  been  the  divinely  ordered  rulers  of 
the  church,  was  employed  by  the  Roman  church  to 
prove  that  St.  Peter  had  been  the  supreme  prince  or 
pontiff  of  the  apostolic  college.  Why  else  should  it 
have  been  said  that  the  church  was  built  upon  Peter, 
why  should  the  power  of  the  keys  have  been  imparted 
to  him  alone,  with  the  commission  to  feed  the  flock  of 
Christ,  and  how  otherwise  explain  his  prominence  in 
the  first  days  of  the  church,  and  the  grandeur  with 
which  his  memory  still  filled  the  Christian  imagina- 
tion ?  Cyprian  could  not  easily  meet  such  an  argument. 
In  his  view,  the  words  spoken  to  Peter  were  addressed 
to  him  simply  as  a  representative  of  all  the  apostles. 
But  if  Peter  was  a  representative  of  the  apostles,  why 
should  not  the  apostles  themselves  be  regarded,  not 


WEAKNESS   OF  CYPRIAN'S  POSITION.     109 

merely  as  the  princes  or  divinely  ordered  rulers  of 
the  churcli,  but  as  the  representatives  of  a  sanctified 
humanity  which  was  larger  than  they ;  and  why  should 
not  the  promises  and  commissions  given  to  them  have 
been  given  in  their  name  to  all  Christians  in  virtue  of 
their  membership  in  the  body  of  Christ  ? 

If  we  may  characterize  the  Cyprianic  and  Roman 
theories  in  the  well  understood  language  of  political 
institutions,  it  may  be  said  that  Cyprian  was  arguing 
in  behalf  of  the  government  of  the  church  by  an  oli- 
garchy, while  Rome  was  urging  the  principle  of  eccle- 
siastical absolutism, — the  need  of  the  impersonation  of 
authority  in  one  man.  An  analogy  may  be  found  for 
the  relation  of  Cyprian  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome  in  the 
earlier  political  history,  when  Cicero,  in  behalf  of  the 
senatorial  oligarchy,  disputed  the  advances  of  Csesar 
to  supreme  authority.  The  same  reasons  which  justi- 
fied imperialism  in  the  state  might  be  applied  with 
equal  force  in  behalf  of  its  adoption  by  the  church. 
The  oligarchy  of  the  Roman  senate  succumbing  to  the 
fascinations  of  Caesarism  was  a  type  of  the  episcopal 
oligarchy  yielding  its  claim  to  the  Roman  papacy. 

In  order  to'^a  fuller  understanding  of  the  work  of 
the  Latin  genius,  as  inspired  anew  under  Christian 
auspices  it  sought  to  create  another  empire  and  to  go 
forth  a  second  time  upon  a  career  of  conquest,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  dwell  for  a  moment  upon  the  Latin 
church  in  the  presence  of  the  intellectual  and  moral 
vagaries  of  heresy,  and  also  to  inquire  what  shape  the 
object  and  goal  of  Christianity  assumed  to  the  Latin 
mind.  To  what  end  was  the  authority  which  she  cre- 
ated subservient  ?     What  motive  inspired  the  growth 


110  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

of  the  hierarchy  and  the  submission  to  its  rule  ?  What 
was  the  object  in  view  of  this  vast  elaboration  of  ec- 
clesiastical machinery  known  as  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church? 

The  one  typical  heresy  which  confronted  the  Chris- 
tian faith  in  Rome,  as  elsewhere  throughout  the  church, 
was  known  as  Gnosticism.  Whatever  the  date  of  its 
origin,  it  was  at  its  height  as  a  phase  of  religious 
thought  by  the  middle  of  the  second  century.  While 
it  is  difficult  to  speak  of  the  movement  as  a  whole, 
since  it  comprised  so  many  different  systems,  yet  in 
its  general  outline  it  was  unmistakably  a  reflection 
of  that  oriental  tendency  whose  embodiment  may  be 
seen  to-day  in  Buddhism.  The  sense  of  weariness  of 
human  life,  the  despairing  pessimism  which  saw  no 
hope  for  the  future  of  humanity  in  this  world,  the 
contempt  for  external  nature,  the  deification  of  asceti- 
cism as  the  principle  of  salvation,  —  such  were  the 
external  features  of  oriental  religion  as  it  began  to  be 
reproduced  in  the  West,  and  which  in  Gnosticism 
threatened  to  combine  with  the  religion  of  Christ.  In 
the  second  century  the  Gnostic  Christians  were  asking 
themselves  the  same  questions  that  Buddha  had  pro- 
pounded in  his  long  reveries  before  he  came  forth  a 
religious  reformer.  They  were  so  impressed  with  the 
magnitude  of  the  evils  and  the  miseries  of  life,  that 
they  questioned  the  divine  omnipotence,  and  wondered 
why  the  world  should  have  been  called  into  existence. 
All  the  Gnostics  were  agreed  that  God  could  not  have 
been  its  creator.  He  stood  in  their  imagination  at  an 
infinite  distance  from  such  a  scene  as  the  world  pre- 
sents. But  having  severed  the  world  from  God,  the 
Gnostics,  like  the  Neo-Platonists,  endeavored  to  reunite 
them  by   a  long  series  of  potencies  or  beings  who 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  APOSTLES'   CREED,      111 

stretched  themselves  across  the  abyss  which  lay  be- 
tween humanity  and  the  supreme  Deity.  The  lowest 
being  in  this  line  of  intermediaries,  in  whom  the  evil 
was  conceived  as  predominating  over  the  good,  was 
selected  by  the  Gnostics  as  fit  to  be  the  creator.  Since 
the  world-maker  is  not  wholly  evil,  for  he  has  some 
remote  relationship  to  the  heavenly  sphere,  there  is 
still  something  in  his  creation  which  is  capable  of  re- 
demption, though  he  himself  is  not  able  or  disposed  to 
assist  in  the  process.  In  order  to  rescue  the  few  souls 
who  have  an  affinity  for  the  divine,  in  whose  composi- 
tion the  good  outweighs  the  evil,  one  of  the  higher 
beings  known  as  the  Christ  descends  into  the  world 
and  makes  known  the  method  by  which  their  salvation 
is  to  be  accomplished.  But  inasmuch  as  the  very 
nature  of  matter  is  evil,  it  was  impossible  for  the 
Gnostics  to  admit  an  incarnation,  —  to  believe  that 
Christ  had  really  taken  a  human  body  and  died  upon 
the  cross.  The  historical  aspects  of  Christ's  eartlily 
life  were  explained  away  as  unworthy  of  a  being  who 
was  divine.  He  appeared  to  have  a  human  body  in 
order  that  he  might  proclaim  his  message;  and  the 
essence  of  his  teaching  is,  that  by  ascetic  practices  a 
few  may  rise  into  the  sphere  of  the  higher,  spiritual 
world,  —  the  majority  of  men  are  doomed  to  annihila- 
tion or  perdition,  and  the  physical  world  to  be  finally 
consumed  in  a  great  conflagration. 
^^  What  is  known  as  the  "Apostles'  Creed"  is  the 
simple  but  emphatic  protest  of  the  church  against  the 
Gnostic  heresies,  —  the  summary  of  that  which  was  be- 
lieved or  felt  to  be  true  as  recorded  in  history  or  veri- 
fied in  Christian  experience.  There  were  other  sum- 
maries of  a  similar  character,  which,  like  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  had  grown  up  after  the  middle  of  the  second 


112  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

century  ;  while  differing  in  detail,  they  agree  in  their 
substance  a5  expansions  of  the  baptismal  formula,  and 
the  explanation  of  their  appearance  is  due  to  the  en- 
ergy with  which  the  heart  and  common-sense  of  the 
church  resisted  the  errors  which  were  fatal  to  its  ex- 
istence. As  we  examine  the  Apostles'  Creed  with 
reference  to  its  historical  interpretation,  the  antago- 
nism is  apparent  at  every  point.  In  the  first  clause,  — 
"  I  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty,  Maker  of 
heaven  and  earth,"  —  it  is  affirmed  that  God  is  not 
limited  or  hampered  by  an  evil  power  in  the  universe 
which  acts  contrary  to  His  will,  and  that  this  earth  as 
well  as  the  heavenly  sphere  is  created  by  supreme  De- 
ity, and  not  by  some  inferior  or  malignant  being.  In 
the  second  article  of  the  creed,  the  words  referring  to 
Christ  as  "  His  only  begotten  Son  our  Lord,"  imply 
a  rejection  of  the  long  line  of  Gnostic  intermediaries 
who  do  not  so  much  unite  as  separate  God  from  hu- 
manity. The  Gnostic  notion  that  the  Saviour  did  not 
have  a  real  body  is  met  by  the  assertion  that  He  was 
born  of  a  human  mother  whose  name  is  preserved  in 
history ;  against  the  Gnostic  denial  of  the  fact  of  His 
death,  the  time  of  His  suffering  is  fixed  by  the  mention 
of  the  Roman  procurator  in  Judsea ;  and  in  order  to 
make  emphatic  the  church's  belief  in  the  reality  as 
well  as  in  the  importance  of  his  death,  it  is  declared 
with  a  threefold  reiteration,  —  "  He  was  crucified,  dead 
and  buried."  The  creed  which  thus  arose  as  a  protest 
asrainst  Gnosticism  was  afterwards  extended  to  meet 
other  needs  of  the  church  as  they  appeared  in  later 
ages.^     As  a  confession  of  faith,  it  shows  how  strong 

^  At  what  time  the  clause,  "He  descended  into  Hell,"  was 
added  to  the  creed  is  not  known.  The  clauses,  "  The  Holy 
Catholic  Church,  the  Communion  of  Saints,  the  Forgiveness  of 


ISSUES  THAT  LAY  BACK  OF  THE  CREED.    113 

was  the  hold  of  the  essential  truth  upon  the  Christian 
consciousness,  in  the  presence  of  the  worst  skepticism 
which  it  could  be  called  upon  to  encounter.  In  its 
Eastern  or  its  Western  form,  it  is  simply  the  em- 
phatic assertion  of  the  incarnation  as  the  essence  of 
the  church's  faith. 

But  there  were  profound  issues  that  lay  back  of  the 
creed,  which  the  creed  does  not  mention.  To  these 
Greek  theology  had  addressed  itself  in  order  to  over- 
come the  principle  which  made  Gnosticism  possible. 
The  Greek  theologians  were  optimists,  not  because 
they  shut  their  eyes  to  the  darker  side  of  life,  but  be- 
cause they  had  exhausted  pessimism  at  its  source  by 
refuting  the  principle  in  which  it  originated.  They 
were  not  given  to  raising  the  cry  that  the  church  was 
in  danger  ;  they  were  not  alarmed  at  the  rise  of  here- 
sies, nor  had  they  fears  for  the  safety  of  the  church, 
because  they  accepted  the  incarnation  not  only  as  an 
historical  fact  which  had  taken  place  in  the  past,  but 
as  a  living  present  reality,  and  saw  the  essential  Christ 
always  and  everywhere  exerting  his  spiritual  force  in 

Sins,"  were  probably  inserted  in  the  West  in  connection  with  the 
Novatian  schism  after  the  middle  of  the  third  century.  None  of 
the  above  expressions  are  to  be  found  in  the  rule  of  faith  as  re- 
cited by  Irenseus  (i.  c.  10,  and  iii.  c.  4),  or  Tertullian  (De  prces. 
hceret.  12,  and  De  vir.  vel.,  i.),  nor  were  they  contained  in  the 
creed  as  recited  at  Nicaea.  The  clause,  "the  Resurrection  of 
the  Body, "  is  given  by  both  Irenaeus  and  Tertullian,  but  is  want- 
ing in  the  Nicene  Creed.  It  may  have  been  a  protest  against  the 
views  entertained  by  Greek  theologians,  and  was  incorporated 
into  the  Eastern  creed  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century  or 
still  later.  The  interesting  legend  that  the  Apostles^  Creed  was 
the  verbal  composition  of  the  apostles  themselves,  each  of  them 
contributing  a  clause  to  the  joint  result,  was  first  mentioned  by 
Rufinus  in  the  fifth  centuiy.  As  a  legend  it  embodies  the  Latin 
idea  of  tradition  as  the  sole  authority  of  faith. 
8 


114  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY, 

order  to  make  manifest  the  redemption  which  He  had 
wrought  in  the  flesh. 

The  Latin  church  had  no  more  aptitude  for  theol- 
ogy as  a  science  than  the  Latin  people  had  for  philos- 
ophy throughout  their  history.  Literary  men  could 
borrow  to  a  certain  extent  from  the  philosophy  of  the 
Greeks,  or  adapt  it  to  their  own  conceptions ;  but  as 
the  Roman  people  created  no  philosophy,  so  the  Ro- 
man church  gave  birth  to  no  theology.  A  deep  and 
instinctive  aversion  to  all  speculative  thought,  a  desire 
for  a  definite  faith  firmly  grounded  on  tradition  as  the 
only  stable  basis,  a  faith  that  could  be  as  exactly  for- 
mulated as  a  code  of  law,  the  slightest  variation  from 
which  could  be  easily  detected  and  exposed,  —  such 
was  the  characteristic,  the  ideal  and  ambition  of  the 
Latin  church  in  the  second  and  third  centuries,  and 
such  they  have  remained  throughout  her  entire  career. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  does  not  appear  that  the  he- 
resies of  the  second  century  particularly  disturbed  the 
peace  of  the  Latin  church,  or  that  they  were  dissemi- 
nated to  any  great  extent.  For  the  most  part  they 
originated  in  the  East,  and  after  they  had  become  full- 
fledged  were  taken  to  Rome.  What  principally  dis- 
turbed the  Latin  church  was  the  existence  of  heresy 
at  all,  whether  near  or  remote.  It  seemed  to  the  gen- 
uine Roman  mind  a  contradiction  or  violation  of  the 
Christian  principle  that  heresy  should  dare  to  assert 
its  existence.  That  principle,  as  the  Roman  Christian 
understood  it,  was  an  explicit  and  implicit  obedience, 
which  included  within  its  range  the  intellect  as  well  as 
the  conscience.  Heresy  in  its  last  analysis  was  simply 
self-will  setting  itself  above  the  authority  of  the  church, 
and  thus  endangering  the  external  unity  of  the  Chris- 
tian empire.     Hence  it  was  above  all  necessary  to  pro- 


AUTHORITY  OF  TRADITION.  115 

claim  a  definite  faith,  and  to  maintain  it  by  some  tan- 
gible authority  which  could  not  be  misunderstood  or 
evaded.  This  was  the  problem  to  which  Latin  eccle- 
siastics devoted  their  energies. 

At  first,  as  has  been  already  remarked,  the  Latins 
received  their  theology  from  the  Greeks  as  submis- 
sively as  their  ancestors  had  received  their  philosophy. 
But  after  the  Latin  language  had  become  the  vehicle 
of  religious  thought  in  the  West,  and  the  two  churches 
had  begun  to  grow  apart,  it  became  difficult  to  fol- 
low the  development  of  Greek  theology.  And  even 
if  it  had  been  understood  and  intelligently  followed, 
it  would  not  have  been  congenial  to  the  Latin  spirit, 
which  so  profoundly  distrusted  the  human  reason. 
What  could  Roman  ecclesiastics,  dreaming  of  a  great 
Christian  empire,  do  with  a  theology  which  rested  for 
its  sanction  on  so  vague  a  basis  as  the  Christian  reason 
or  consciousness,  or  how  with  such  a  principle  could 
they  meet  the  Gnostic  and  other  heretics  ?  Even  the 
"rule  of  faith"  was  of  little  value  unless  it  were 
based  on  some  more  material  foundation  than  Chris- 
tian experience  enlightened  by  a  divine  spirit.  If  the 
appeal  was  made  to  Scripture  as  the  final  authority, 
the  case  was  not  helped,  for  Scripture  was  capable  of 
varied  interpretations,  and  had  been  already  discred- 
ited by  the  heretics  who  had  been  the  first  to  use  it  as 
a  refuge  from  their  opponents. 

Irenseus  (ob.  202)  was  the  first  among  western  writ- 
ers who  combated  the  Gnostic  heresies.^    He  had  been 

^  In  his  conception  of  the  incarnation  Irenseus  is  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  the  spirit  of  Greek  theology,  and  has  set  forth  the 
doctrine  with  great  force  and  beauty  of  expression.  He  has  been 
sometimes  regarded,  together  with  his  pupil,  Hippolytus,  as  rep- 
resenting a  distinct  school  in  which  a  liberal  theology  was  com- 


•116  THE  LATIN   THEOLOGY. 

born  in  the  East,  and  was  to  some  extent  familiar  with 
Greek  philosophy.  Yet  in  his  distant  home  in  Gaul 
he  had  felt  the  influence  of  the  Roman  spirit,  and  his 
writings  reveal  that  in  the  compromises  of  his  thought 
the  Roman  principle  was  predominant.  He  used  his 
knowledge  of  philosophy  in  reasoning  with  the  Gnos- 
tics merely  to  point  a  moral.  He  had  no  faith  in 
philosophy  as  such  —  in  the  reason  as  a  divine  gift 
through  whicli  God  reveals  His  truth.  To  be  able  to 
trace  a  Gnostic  opinion  to  its  supposed  origin  in  the 
teaching  of  some  philosopical  sect  was  sufficient  evi- 
dence of  its  falsity.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore, 
that  he  should  fall  back  upon  the  tradition  of  the 
church,  descending  through  the  episcopate  from  the 
apostles,  as  the  best  bulwark  that  could  be  raised 
against  the  danger  of  heresy.  He  formulated  the  idea 
of  tradition  so  forcibly,  that  his  memorable  words  have 
been  regarded  by  the  Latin  church  ever  since  as  an 
axiom  in  dealing  with  the  divergences  of  religious  be- 
lief. It  is  possible  that  he  did  not  intend  to  convey 
the  meaning  which  later  generations  attached  to  his 
language,  but  as  to  the  general  bearing  of  his  argu- 
ment there  can  be  no  doubt.     While  he  admitted  that 

bined  with  an  ecclesiastical  tendency.  While  in  some  respects  he 
stands  by  himself  and  cannot  be  classified,  his  real  affinity  was 
with  the  West  and  not  with  the  East.  He  had  no  confidence  in 
the  reason  as  an  organ  of  the  truth,  and  accepted  the  Latin  idea 
of  the  episcopate  as  possessing  the  charisma  veritatis.  His  ten- 
dency was  toward  a  legal  apprehension  of  Christianity.  Cf.  Art. 
Irenseus  by  Lipsius,  Die.  Chrvi.  Biog.  The  difference  between 
Origen  and  Hippolytus  has  been  clearly  stated  by  Martineau, 
Studies  of  Christianity,  p.  246.  In  meditating  on  the  conjunction 
between  Father  and  Son,  Origen  would  think  of  the  relation  be- 
tween thought  and  volition  •  Hippolytus  of  that  between  volition 
and  execution. 


ARGUMENT  OF  IRENjEUS.  117 

the  "  deposit "  of  the  faith  might  have  been  preserved 
in  every  church  in  which  an  unbroken  descent  of  the 
episcopate  from  the  apostles  could  be  traced,  yet,  as 
he  argued,  it  was  preeminently  the  church  of  Rome  by 
which  the  tradition  of  every  other  church  must  be  re- 
gulated, because  of  its  high  importance  as  the  capital 
of  the  empire  and  as  founded  by  the  two  most  glorious 
apostles,  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul.  The  apostolic  tradi- 
tion, he  further  reasoned,  must  have  been  faithfully 
preserved  at  Rome,  because  any  departure  from  it 
would  there  have  been  most  easily  detected  among  be- 
lievers from  all  parts  of  the  church  who  were  in  the 
habit  of  meeting  there ;  and,  therefore,  since  the  tradi- 
tion had  been  maintained  in  its  purity  at  Rome,  all 
other  churches  are  in  possession  of  the  faith  so  far  as 
they  are  in  agreement  with  the  church  in  Rome.^ 

The  same  line  of  reasoning  was  also  adopted  by 
TertuUian  (Ob.  circ.  220)  in  his  famous  treatise  on 
the  "  Prescription  of  Heresy."  He  had  been  a  Roman 
lawyer  before  his  conversion  to  Christianity,  and  the 
legal  attitude  is  everywhere  apparent  in  his  writings. 
He  was  always  the  advocate,  holding,  as  it  were,  a 
brief  for  Christianity  as  he  understood  it,  not  con- 
cerned so  much  for  the  truth  as  for  overthrowins:  the 
adversaries  that  rose  up  against  it.  From  his  point  of 
view  the  church's  faith  was  its  property,  and  the  aim 
of  heresy  was  to  weaken  the  church's  sense  of  security 
resulting  from  long  possession.  Hence  the  receipt  for 
dealing  with  the  heretics  was  the  legal  argument  that 
the  church  had  a  presumption  in  its  favor  springing 
from  long  and  undisputed  possession,  which  constituted 
its  prescription  against  all  new  claimants.    Or,  to  drop 

^  iii.  c.  3.  "  Ad  hanc  enim  ecclesiam  propter  potioreni  prin- 
cipalitatem  necesse  est  omnem  conveiiire  ecclesiam." 


118  THE  LATIN   THEOLOGY. 

the  figure,  heresy  is  simply  self-will,  and  is  instigated 
by  philosophy,  —  the  one  source  of  evil  against  which 
the  church  must  be  always  on  its  guard.  Athens  has 
no  connection  with  Jerusalem,  the  academy  with  the 
church,  or  heretics  with  Christians.  "  Away  with  all 
efforts  to  produce  a  mottled  Christianity  of  Stoic,  Pla- 
tonic, and  dialectic  composition."  Truth  does  not  call 
for  continual  research  and  inquiry,  —  it  is  a  definite 
thing,  to  be  sought  after  until  it  has  been  found,  and 
then  all  inquiry  should  cease  ;  just  as  the  woman  in 
the  parable  did  not  go  on  looking  for  the  piece  of  sil- 
ver after  she  had  found  it.  Away  with  the  man  who 
is  ever  seeking  because  he  never  finds  !  The  creed  or 
rule  of  faith  is  the  summary  of  all  truth,  and  curios- 
ity should  not  attempt  to  go  beyond  it.  Nor  should 
the  church  condescend  to  support  the  rule  of  faith  by 
arguing  with  the  heretic  from  Scripture,  for  the  Scrip- 
ture belongs  to  the  church  alone,  and  heretics  should 
not  be  allowed  its  use,  since  they  have  no  title  at  all 
to  the  privilege.  The  appeal,  therefore,  does  not  lie  to 
Scripture,  but  to  the  authority  of  tradition  handed 
down  through  the  apostles  and  apostolic  churches. 
Here  lies  the  test  of  truth,  the  principle  of  certitude. 
Since  Christ  gave  a  "  deposit "  to  the  apostles  and 
sent  them  forth  to  preach,  no  others  ought  to  be  re- 
ceived as  preachers  than  those  whom  He  appointed. 
Having  been  under  the  teaching  of  Christ,  the  apos- 
tles must  have  been  fully  instructed  in  all  things,  and 
were  quite  competent  to  transmit  safely  the  truth  as 
they  had  received  it.  The  fact  that  St.  Paul  rebuked 
St.  Peter  for  his  inconsistency  or  cowardice  does  not 
at  all  invalidate  the  teaching  of  St.  Peter.  Nor  did 
St.  Paul  have  any  superiority,  as  a  preacher  of  truth, 
to  St.  Peter.     The  apostles  did  not  keep  anything 


THE  METHOD   OF   TERTULLIAN.  119 

back,  as  the  heretics  pretend,  but  handeJk  «r  the  entire 
"  deposit  "  to  their  successors.  It  is  inco^feeivable  to 
imagine  the  churches  which  they  founded  as  capri- 
cious or  unfaithful  stewards  of  a  treasure  held  in  trust 
for  those  that  came  after  them ;  nor  is  the  value  of 
this  argument  affected  by  the  circumstance  that  the 
apostolic  church  of  Galatia  fell  away  from  the  truth, 
and  "  was  so  soon  removed  to  another  gospel "  than 
that  which  St.  Paul  had  preached  ;  or  that  the  church 
in  Corinth  required  to  be  fed  with  milk  because  it  was 
not  able  to  bear  strong  meat ;  for  if  these  churches 
were  rebuked  for  falling  away  from  the  truth,  were 
they  not  also  corrected  by  the  apostle  ?  That  the  trans- 
mission of  the  "  deposit "  has  been  faithfully  accom- 
plished is  shown  by  the  substantial  agreement  in  the 
churches  everywhere.  Variations  and  diversities  in- 
dicate a  corruption  of  the  faith,  and  are  the  essential 
mark  of  heresy. 

The  heretics  are  therefore  challenged  to  display  their 
record  ;  let  them  unfold  the  roll  of  their  bishops,  com- 
ing down  in  due  succession  from  the  apostles,  so  that 
the  first  in  the  line  of  descent  can  show  that  he  was 
ordained  by  some  apostle  or  apostolic  man.  Here  lies 
the  strength  of  the  Catholic  church,  that  it  has  apos- 
tolic sees  which  utter  the  voice  of  the  apostles  them- 
selves. There  is  Corinth,  Philippi,  Thessalonica,  and 
Ephesus.  In  Italy  there  is  Rome,  which  may  boast  a 
threefold  apostolic  authority.  How  happy  is  its  church 
on  which  apostles  poured  forth  all  their  doctrines  along 
with  their  blood,  —  where  Peter  was  crucified,  and 
Paul  beheaded,  and  John  came  forth  unharmed  from 
immersion  in  boiling  oil.  So,  then,  to  conclude,  the 
heretics  are  trespassing  on  a  domain  which  is  not  theirs. 
It  may  be  fairly  said  to  them,  Who  are  you  ?     When 


120  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

and  whence  did  you  come?  As  you  are  none  of  mine, 
what  have  you  to  do  with  that  which  is  mine  ?  By 
what  right  do  you  hew  my  wood,  or  divert  the  streams 
of  my  fountain,  or  remove  my  landmarks  ?  This  is 
my  property.  Why  are  you  sowing  and  feeding  here 
at  your  pleasure  ?  This  is  my  property  ;  I  have  long 
possessed  it :  I  possessed  it  before  you ;  I  hold  sure 
title-deeds  from  the  original  owners  themselves  to 
whom  the  estate  belonged  ;  I  am  the  heir  of  the  apos- 
tles. As  they  carefully  prepared  a  will  and  testament 
and  committed  it  to  a  trust,  even  so  I  hold  it. 

Such  was  the  argument  of  TertuUian  in  his  "Pre- 
scription of  Heretics."  The  book  was  probably  writ- 
ten in  the  early  part  of  his  life  ;  after  he  became  a 
Montanist  he  ceased  to  make  so  much  of  apostles  as 
successors  of  Christ,  and  dwelt  upon  the  work  of  a 
divine  spirit,  whose  office  is  to  break  down  custom  and 
routine  as  the  sanctions  of  truth,  and  to  lead  men  into 
a  deeper  knowledge  of  the  things  of  God.  But  the 
argument  of  the  Prescription  was  too  clear  and  valu- 
able, too  much  in  accordance  with  the  genius  of  the 
Eoman  church,  to  be  laid  aside  because  its  author  had 
become  recreant  to  its  significance.  Of  all  the  writ- 
ings of  TertuUian,  it  was  the  one  most  deeply  studied 
in  later  ages,  the  favorite  treatise  with  ecclesiastics 
who  have  aimed  to  revive  the  authority  of  the  church 
or  resist  the  encroachments  of  the  reason.  In  the 
early  church  it  marked  an  important  step  in  the  pro- 
cess by  which  the  authority  of  the  episcopate  was  cre- 
ated as  a  means  of  overcoming  heresy.  Like  the 
argument  of  Irengeus,  it  tended  naturally  to  build  up 
the  supremacy  of  the  see  of  Rome,  for  it  was  a  method 
which  found  its  most  emphatic  illustration  in  pointing 
to  the  one  church  which  was  believed  to  concentrate  in 


BELIEF  IN  ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT.      121 

itself  the  united  labors  of  the  most  eminent  of  the 
apostles. 

The  desire  to  rid  the  church  of  heresy  was  one 
of  the  causes  which  stimulated  the  growth  of  the 
ecclesiastical  organization  in  the  West,  and  gave  di- 
rection to  the  peculiar  genius  of  Rome.  But  ba<3k 
of  this  desire  may  be  seen  the  operation  of  a  yet 
more  powerful  motive.  The  practical  purpose  for 
which  the  church  had  been  established,  or  for  which 
Christianity  existed,  was  not  to  the  Latin  mind 
primarily  an  ethical  one ;  even  the  obedience  which 
the  church  required,  or  the  morality  which  the  gospel 
enjoined,  were  not  an  end  in  themselves  but  a  means 
to  a  remoter  end,  —  the  salvation  of  the  soul  from  the 
consequences  of  sin  in  the  future  world.  The  doc- 
trine of  an  endless  punishment  for  all  who  rejected 
the  claims  of  Christ  must  have  been  from  an  early 
period  the  underlying  belief  which  gave  the  strongest 
sanction  to  the  church's  authority. 

At  first  the  church  had  appeared  as  the  community 
of  Christian  disciples  held  together  by  their  love  for 
the  Master,  and  waiting  for  his  return  in  order  to  be 
reunited  to  Him  in  His  millennial  kinerdom.  The  fate 
of  those  outside  its  limits,  who  had  not  repented  of 
their  sins  or  abandoned  the  worship  of  idols,  and  es- 
pecially of  those  who  persecuted  the  church,  is  por- 
trayed in  the  gloomy  visions  of  the  Apocalypse.  All 
that  the  human  imagination  could  conceive  as  most 
awful  was  the  punishment  in  store  for  these  when 
the  seals  of  the  future  were  broken,  when  the  angels 
should  sound  the  successive  trumpets  of  human  doom. 
This  belief  in  a  millennial  kingdom  soon  to  be  estab- 
lished grew  weak  in  the  second  century,  and  in  the 
third  may  be  said  to  have  disappeared.    But  the  vision 


122  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

of  a  lake  that  burned  with  endless  fires  for  the  ene- 
mies of  Christ,  the  tortures  in  reserve  for  those  who 
persecuted  his  faithful  followers,  still  appealed  to  a 
church  that  existed  in  the  face  of  a  perpetual  ha- 
tred and  scorn  on  the  part  of  the  heathens.  It  was 
impossible  that  recriminations  should  not  be  heard 
from  heathens  and  Christians  alike.  The  latter  told , 
their  adversaries  of  a  day  of  judgment,  when  the 
punishment  which  had  been  withheld  in  this  world 
should  fall  upon  them  in  awful  severity,  —  when  the 
final  sentence  should  be  pronounced  which  remanded 
them  to  the  tortures  of  endless  suffering.  TertuUian 
grows  eloquent  as  he  describes  the  scene  which  he 
shall  witness  when  that  last  judgment  day,  with  its 
unlooked-for  issues,  shall  be  over.  The  vast  spectacle 
which  will  then  burst  upon  his  gaze  will  excite  his 
admiration,  his  derision,  his  joy,  his  exultation.  lie 
will  see  illustrious  monarchs  who  had  been  deified 
on  earth  groaning  in  the  lowest  darkness  with  great 
Jove  himself,  and  with  them  the  governors  of  prov- 
inces, in  fires  more  fierce  than  those  which  they  lighted 
on  earth  for  the  followers  of  Christ.  The  world's 
wise  men  and  philosophers,  who  had  taught  falsely, 
and  among  them  those  also  who  had  denied  the 
resurrection  of  the  same  identical  body  which  they 
had  left,  these  will  be  there,  to  be  consumed  in  the 
body,  covered  with  shame,  in  the  presence  of  those 
whom  they  had  deceived.  The  poets  who  had  sung 
of  a  judgment  seat  of  Rhadamanthus  or  Minos  will 
appear  at  the  unexpected  judgment  seat  of  Christ. 
There  wiU  then  be  a  better  opportunity  than  he  has 
cared  to  avail  himself  of  here,  of  witnessing  the 
tragedians  and  the  play-actors  declaiming  in  a  real 
calamity,  the  charioteers  glowing  in  their  chariots  of 


MORBID   TONE   OF   THE  AGE.  123 

fire,  the  wrestlers  tossing  in  their  fiery  billows.  Or  if 
he  should  not  find  interest  enough  in  such  a  spectacle, 
he  is  sure  to  turn  with  eager  and  insatiable  gaze  upon 
those  who  vented  themselves  in  fury  against  the  Lord. 
These  are  sights  which  no  quaestor  or  priest  can  now 
procure  a  Roman  audience  the  pleasure  of  beholding, 
but  the  Christian  can  even  now  by  faith  behold  these 
things  in  the  pictures  of  the  imagination.^ 

When  Christian  apologists  like  TertuUian  were  thus 
proclaiming  to  their  heathen  brethren  a  day  of  final 
judgment,  in  which  they  were  to  receive  the  never- 
ending  penalty  of  their  madness,  we  may  admire  the 
boldness  which  their  speech  displays,  but  we  can  no 
longer  wonder  at  the  growing  indignation  which  was 
soon  to  culminate  in  the  Decian  persecution,  in  one 
supreme  effort  to  root  up  and  exterminate  the  Chris- 
tian church. 

A  certain  unhealthy  and  morbid  tone  characterized 
the  spirit  of  both  Christians  and  heathens  in  the  third 
century.  The  decline  of  the  Roman  empire  since  the 
death  of  Marcus  Aurelius  (a.  d.  180)  was  attended 
by  disasters  of  varied  kinds,  often  on  an  immense 
scale,  —  pestilences,  famines,  earthquakes,  frequent  de- 
feats of  the  Roman  legions.  The  feeling  that  some- 
thing was  wrong,  that  more  fearful  judgments  were  im- 
pending, took  possession  of  the  public  mind.  Under 
such  circumstances  it  was  becoming  difficult  to  main- 
tain the  conviction  of  the  love  of  God.  The  heathens 
were  cherishing  a  fatal  conviction  that  the  gods  were 
angry  because  the  Christians  neglected  their  worship, 
and  were  visiting  their  wrath  upon  the  empire.  Cy- 
prian replied  in  the  same  strain,  that  God  was  angry 
with  the  heathens  because  they  did  not  turn  from 
1  De  Spec.y  30. 


124  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

their  idolatry.  The  writings  of  Cyprian  reveal  how 
the  popular  theology  of  the  Latin  church  was  taking 
shape  in  one  of  the  darkest  moments  in  its  history. 
The  Decian  persecution  (249-251)  had  been  followed 
by  a  calamity  even  more  awful  in  the  great  plague 
which  reached  Carthage  in  the  year  252,  and  is  said 
to  have  destroyed  half  of  the  population  of  Alexan- 
dria, and  for  a  time  to  have  carried  off  at  Rome  five 
thousand  people  daily,  lasting  for  some  twenty  years 
before  its  ravages  were  over.  An  event  of  this  kind 
must  have  gathered  additional  horror  when  we  con- 
sider how  society  was  sharply  divided  against  itself, 
Christians  and  heathens  accusing  each  other  of  being 
the  cause  of  the  calamity. 

Cyprian  sought  to  improve  the  moment  by  calling 
the  heathens  to  repentance,  but  his  method  of  appeal 
was  calculated  to  embitter  rather  than  appease  the 
pagan  mind.  Like  Tertullian,  he  portrayed  the  suf- 
ferings of  the  future  world  endless  in  their  duration, 
of  which  the  present  disasters  were  a  warning  and  a 
prophecy.  He  did  not,  indeed,  exult  in  the  prospect, 
but  still  thought  it  would  be  a  compensation  to  the 
Christians  for  what  they  endured  at  the  hands  of 
their  persecutors.  In  the  history  of  theology  his  let- 
ters and  treatises  possess  a  peculiar  value  as  bringing 
out  his  theory  of  life,  —  a  theory  now  for  the  first 
time  announced  with  dogmatic  clearness  and  precision. 
The  world,  he  declares  in  his  "Address  to  Deme- 
trian,"  is  nearing  its  end,  and  the  coming  of  Anti- 
Christ  is  at  hand.  The  earth  has  grown  old  and 
exhausted,  life  is  failing  at  its  sources,  the  sun  is 
losing  its  heat,  the  rain  diminishes,  the  harvests  grow 
thin,  the  disemboweled  mountains  no  longer  yield 
the  precious  ores,  young  men   are  born  prematurely 


LIFE  AS  A   PROBATION.  125 

old,  —  everywhere  he  looks  he  reads  the  signs  of 
decay  and  approaching  dissolution.  Meantime  the 
church  remains  as  an  ark  of  deliverance  from  the 
wrath  of  God.  The  Christians  may  seem  to  share 
with  their  neighbors  in  the  troubles  of  the  time,  but 
they  who  have  a  confidence  in  the  good  things  that  a 
future  life  will  bring  do  not  in  reality  suffer  from  the 
assault  of  present  evils.  To  the  pagans  the  church 
offers  a  refuge,  if  they  will  turn  to  it.  But  the  op- 
portunity is  brief,  the  end  is  near ;  after  this  world  is 
over  there  is  no  hope,  no  possibility  of  repentance. 
The  pain  of  punishment  will  then  be  without  the  fruit 
of  repentance,  tears  and  prayers  will  be  of  no  avail. 
Here  life  is  either  saved  or  lost.  So  long  as  one 
remains  in  this  world,  no  repentance  is  too  late. 
Death  constitutes  the  line  between  hope  and  despair ; 
it  puts  an  end  to  human  probation.  Hereafter  a 
punishment  devouring  with  living  flames  will  burn 
up  the  condemned  in  an  ever-burning  Gehenna;  to 
their  agonies  will  be  neither  end  nor  respite.  Souls 
with  their  bodies  will  be  reserved  in  infinite  tortures 
for  suffering.^ 

When  Christianity  was  presented  in  ways  like  these 
to  the  heathen  world,  when  fear  was  becoming  the  mo- 
tive to  the  worship  of  God  and  the  communion  of  the 
church,  and  salvation  was  escape  from  impending 
wrath,  it  was  only  a  question  of  time  how  long  the 
Christians  themselves  could  maintain  their  faith  in 
their  own  salvation.  Cyprian's  theory  made  life  a 
probation  for  the  heathen  world,  while  those  within 
the  church  had  already  entered  by  anticipation  upon 
an  assured  inheritance.  But  how  were  the  Christians 
to  retain  this  assurance  when  they  saw  the  great  ma- 
^  Ad  Demetrianum,  23-25. 


126  THE  LATIN   THEOLOGY. 

jority  of  their  heathen  brethren  passing  to  endless 
perdition,  when  religion  was  no  longer  grounded  in 
love,  and  God  had  become  a  passive  spectator  in  the 
struggle  where  endless  issues  depended  upon  the  de- 
cision of  an  hour?  To  such  an  inquiry  the  answer 
may  be  read  in  the  changes  which  were  coming  over 
the  church  after  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  some 
of  them  in  Cyprian's  lifetime.  The  world  was  be- 
coming, in  the  Christian  imagination,  a  theatre  for 
the  activity  of  malignant  supernatural  forces.  The 
heathen  deities  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  mere  phan- 
toms ;  they  became  real  existences,  demons  in  the  air, 
which  lurked  in  wait  for  unwary  souls.  Baptism 
assumed  the  character  of  a  magical  rite,  by  whose 
waters  the  soul  was  rendered  invulnerable  against 
the  assaults  of  evil  spirits.  Connected  with  baptism 
from  this  time,  as  an  indispensable  preliminary,  was 
the  rite  of  exorcism,  by  which  the  evil  spirit  was  first 
banished  before  the  formula  of  the  sacred  name  could 
be  repeated.  The  sign  of  the  cross  was  thought  to 
be  a  safeguard  against  the  thousand  shapes  in  which 
the  deities  of  heathenism  sought  to  regain  possession 
of  the  Christian  convert.  The  dread  and  terror  which 
had  fallen  upon  this  world  began  to  extend  to  the 
next,  and  when  men  began  to  pray  for  their  dead  it 
was  a  sign  that  the  old  assurance  had  departed  which 
regarded  them  as  safe  in  the  bosom  of  God.  So  far 
had  God  retreated  from  man  that  the  gulf  which 
divided  them  began  to  be  bridged  with  saints  and 
martyrs  and  confessors,  to  whom  prayers  might  be 
addressed,  through  whose  mediation  with  Christ 
prayers  stood  a  better  chance  of  being  heard  and 
answered.  Influences  like  these  began  thus  early  to 
transform    the   Lord's    Supper  into  a  sacrifice   after 


LATIN    IDEA    OF   CATHOLICITY,  127 

Jewish  and  heathen  types,  by  which  the  favor  of  God 
might  be  propitiated.  The  clergy  were  a  priesthood 
after  the  same  analogies,  whose  function  was  to  stand 
between  God  and  the  people,  as  the  mediators  through 
whose  intercession  heaven  remained  open,  and  the 
favor  of  God  descended  to  man. 

The  course  of  events  in  the  third  century  tended  to 
confirm  the  Roman  idea  of  the  church  by  determining 
how  its  catholicity  was  to  be  conceived  as  a  working 
principle.  A  brief  allusion  to  the  controversies  which 
were  connected  with  this  result  will  be  sufficient. 
After  the  Decian  persecution  it  became  an  important 
question  what  should  be  the  method  of  treatment 
adopted  toward  the  large  number  of  Christians  who 
had  apostatized  or  denied  their  faith.  Should  they 
be  received  back  into  the  church  on  easy  terms  after 
professing  repentance,  or  should  they  be  subjected  to 
a  severe,  protracted  discipline,  or  was  it  proper  that 
they  should  be  received  back  into  the  church  on  any 
terms,  so  heinous  was  the  offense  which  they  had 
committed  ?  Another  kindred  issue  was  whether  the 
baptism  performed  by  heretics  possessed  validity,  or 
whether  the  rite  must  be  repeated  in  the  case  of  those 
who,  rejecting  their  heresy,  sought  the  communion  of 
the  church.  The  position  of  the  African  church  dif- 
fered in  both  instances  from  that  of  Rome.  The 
Montanist  influence  still  lingered  in  Carthage,  and 
even  Cyprian,  who  had  been  a  pupil  and  admirer  of 
Tertullian,  retained  something  of  that  stern  old  Mon- 
tanist's  exclusive  zeal  for  the  purity  of  the  Christian 
community.  He  was  a  Protestant  at  heart,  despite 
his  sympathy  with  the  Roman  spirit  for  order  and 
administration.  While  he  condemned  the  extreme 
attitude  of  those  who  said  that  forgiveness  was  impos- 


128  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

sible  for  those  guilty  of  apostasy,  and  therefore  for- 
bade their  return  to  the  church  on  any  condition,  yet 
he  insisted  on  a  penitence  and  discipline  which  to 
many  seemed  too  severe.  In  his  controversy  with 
the  Bishop  of  Rome  about  the  rebaptism  of  heretics, 
he  vehemently  assailed  the  invalidity  of  heretical 
baptism.  1  The  purpose  of  Cyprian  was  to  keep  the 
church  as  pure  as  possible,  even  though  such  a  policy 
should   hinder   its   extension.      Two   theories   of   the 

1  The  Bishop  of  Rome  maintained,  on  the  ground  of  tradition, 
that  baptism  in  the  name  of  Christ  only,  by  whomsoever  admin- 
istered, possessed  validity  (Cyprian,  Ep.  12,  e.  18);  while  Cy- 
prian held  that  a  true  baptism  required  the  name  of  the  trinity, 
as  well  as  its  performance  in  the  Catholic  church.  But  how 
could  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  so  early  as  the  middle  of  the  tliird 
century,  have  made  a  mistake  in  so  important  a  matter  as  the 
tradition  concerning  baptism,  especially  when,  if  Irenseus  was 
right,  Rome  was  the  one  place  where  any  departure  from  the 
tradition  would  be  most  easily  detected,  and  whose  possession  of 
such  safeguards  made  the  Roman  church  the  best  custodian  of 
tradition  ?  Firmilian,  Bishop  of  Csesarea,  in  a  letter  to  Cyprian, 
gets  over  the  difficulty  by  alleging  that  Rome  was  not  specially 
distinguished  for  maintaining  the  traditions  of  the  apostles.  But 
if  Rome  did  not  keep  the  traditions,  what  apostolic  see  could  be 
depended  upon  to  do  so;  and  then  what  becomes  of  the  argu- 
ment from  tradition  ?  Firmilian  went  on  further,  in  the  same 
epistle,  to  say  that  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  not  content  with  the  one 
rock  on  which  the  foundation  of  the  church  was  laid,  had  intro- 
duced many  other  rocks,  and  indeed,  by  his  innovations,  had 
abolished  the  rock  on  which  he  claimed  to  rest  as  the  successor 
of  Peter.  For  this  famous  epistle,  which  patristic  scholars  in 
the  Roman  church  have  never  sought  to  make  easily  accessible, 
see  Routh,  Scrip.  Ecclesiasticor.  Opusc,  i.  pp.  235,  243. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  in  the  history  of  baptism,  that  in  the  ninth 
century  Pope  Nicholas  I.  should  have  again  taken  the  ground  of 
the  Roman  bishop  in  the  third  century  and  have  declared  bap*- 
tism  in  the  name  of  Christ  only  to  be  valid.  Labbe,  Concilia^ 
viii.  p.  648. 


ACCESSION  OF  CONSTANTINE.  129 

church  were  contending  in  his  mind,  one  of  which 
made  it  consist  in  the  clergy,  the  other  in  the  body  of 
the  faithful,  and  to  neither  view  did  he  give  unquali- 
fied approval.  It  was  quite  otherwise  with  the  au- 
thorities at  Eome.  They  rejected  by  a  sure  instinct 
whatever  conflicted  with  the  idea  of  the  church  as  an 
entity  in  itself  existing  independently  of  those  within 
its  fold.  A  stable,  divinely  ordered  society,  as  Rome 
conceived  it,  could  only  exist  and  grow  on  condition 
that  the  mode  of  entrance  should  be  easy  and  the 
gates  of  admission  stand  open  to  all  postulants.  The 
demands  which  it  made  upon  its  members  should  not 
be  too  rigid  or  exacting,  and  in  case  of  failure  or 
apostasy  the  terms  of  restoration  must  not  be  severe. 
Against  the  restrictions  which  Cyprian  imposed,  the 
Roman  church  contended,  in  the  interest  of  a  more 
comprehensive  and  flexible  organization,  though  at 
the  expense  of  the  spiritual  claims  which  marked  the 
early  Christian  communities.  The  Roman  policy  was 
bringing  the  church  nearer  to  the  world  by  lessening 
the  difference  that  divided  them,  —  its  result  was  to 
make  the  church  accessible  and  attractive  to  the  great 
multitude  of  pagans  who  were  incapable  of  discerning 
its  spiritual  heritage. 

/  m. 

The  accession  of  Constantine  in  the  early  part  of 
the  fourth  century  marks  a  new  era  not  only  in  the 
history  of  the  church  but  also  in  the  fortunes  of  the- 
ology. No  greater  change  can  be  conceived  than  took 
place  when  the  once  persecuted  and  despised  Chris- 
tian community  first  realized  that  it  had  superseded 
the  old  paganism,  that  the  Roman  emperor  was  hence- 
forth to  stand  in  close  relationship  to  the  church  as  its 


130  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY, 

protector  and  highest  representative.  Constantine  be- 
stowed a  great  favor  upon  the  church  by  giving  to  it 
the  recognition  of  the  law.  The  church  fell  heir  to 
the  old  pagan  temples  and  their  revenues ;  it  was  freed 
from  the  burden  of  taxation;  its  representatives  be- 
came a  privileged  class  by  exemption  from  the  disa- 
greeable duties  which  rested  so  heavily  upon  Roman 
citizens.  There  were  no  formal  terms  of  alliance  be- 
tween church  and  state,  but  it  was  understood  that  the 
church  made  some  return  for  these  favors  so  gener- 
ously bestowed.  Constantine  wanted  unity  above  all 
things,  and  saw  in  the  Christian  communities  a  com- 
prehensive method  of  organization  capable  of  being 
utilized  for  the  restoration  of  unity  to  a  distracted 
empire.  It  was  his  policy  to  exalt  the  bishops  as  the 
representatives  everywhere  not  only  of  the  church  but 
of  the  state.  One  of  the  first  effects  of  his  reign  was 
the  realization  of  the  external  unity  of  Christendom 
in  a  formal  and  imposing  manner.  When  the  contro- 
versy arose  over  the  teaching  of  Arius,  and  it  seemed 
as  though  the  empire  itself  was  shaken  in  the  excite- 
ment which  rent  the  church,  a  great  synod  of  bishops 
was  held  at  Nicsea  (325),  which  not  met*ely  disposed 
of  the  question  in  dispute,  but  illustrated  the  glory  of 
the  church's  external  unity  in  a  way  calculated  to  for- 
ever enthrall  the  Christian  imagination. 

It  had  been  the  work  of  the  Latin  church  to  per- 
fect and  establish  the  ecclesiastical  organization,  and 
the  church  in  the  East  had  received  and  exemplified 
the  theory  which  Cyprian  had  been  the  first  to  enun- 
ciate, of  the  solidarity  of  the  episcopate.  The  doctrine 
of  the  trinity,  the  formula  of  which  had  resulted 
from  the  alliance  of  Greek  philosophy  with  Christian 
thought,  had  on  the  other  hand  been  received  by  the 


THE  NICENE   CREED  IN    THE    WEST.     131 

Latin  church  from  the  hands  of  Greek  theologians.^ 
The  doctrine  came  to  the  Latin  church  in  the  shape 
which  it  preferred,  —  a  dogma  put  forth  upon  author- 
ity. It  is  doubtful  whether  the  Latins  appreciated 
always  the  process  of  speculative  thought  by  which 
the  doctrine  of  the  trinity  was  maintained  by  Greek 
thinkers.  The  opposition  to  the  doctrine  did  not  come 
from  the  West,  but  from  oriental  countries  where  the 
bishops  were  in  bondage  to  notions  about  emanations, 
which  prevented  them  from  accepting  easily  the  idea 
of  the  coequality  of  Christ  with  the  Father.  When 
this  doctrine  had  once  received  the  sanction  of  a  re- 
putable authority,  the  Latins  not  only  accepted  it  but 
became  its  strongest  supporters.  In  the  long  contro- 
versy that  followed  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  before  its 
decision  gained  the  voluntary  recognition  of  the  ori- 
ental bishops,  it  was  mainly  by  a  process  of  reasoning 
that  the  Nicene  formula  won  its  way  in  the  East  to 
acceptance.  Athanasius  declined  to  rest  upon  the  au- 
thority of  the  council  when  urging  its  claims.  But  the 
Latins,  who  wished  a  definite  faith  set  forth  upon  un- 
questioned authority,  sustained  from  the  first  the  deci- 
sion of  Nicaea  as  final  and  unchangeable.  What  in- 
deed to  the  Latin  mind  would  become  of  the  faith 
itself,  if  a  decision  once  solemnly  rendered  under  the 
inspiration,  as  it  was  believed,  of  the  divine  Spirit, 
could  be  rescinded  or  modified  by  a  subsequent  dis- 
cussion. There  may  have  been  deeper  reasons  for  the 
acceptance  of  the  dogma,  but  with  the  Latins  it  was 
a  question  of  life  or  death  that  the  authority  of  the 
Council  of  Nicaea  should  be  maintained.     And  it  may 

1  The  only  Western  writer  who  took  an  important  part  in 
the  trinitarian  controversy  in  the  third  century  was  Dionysius, 
Bishop  of  Rome,  and  he  was  Greek  by  birth  and  education. 


132  THE  LATIN    THEOLOGY, 

be  regarded  as  providential  in  the  divine  ordering  of 
history,  that  the  one  doctrine  which  contains  the  es- 
sential and  comprehensive  principle  of  the  Christian 
faith  should  have  met  with  such  powerful  and  unques- 
tioning support  in  an  age  when  reason  and  philosophy 
were  so  soon  to  abdicate  their  throne. 

The  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  have  been  idealized 
by  the  worshipers  of  catholic  antiquity  as  the  halcyon 
age  of  the  church  —  as  the  actual  fulfillment  for  once 
in  its  history  of  the  promise  which  attended  its  birth. 
The  church  developed  to  a  fuller  extent  its  organiza- 
tion by  following  the  new  political  divisions  of  the 
empire,  and  a  graded  hierarchy  of  bishops  arose  cor- 
responding to  the  grades  of  the  civil  service.  As  the 
state  borrowed  from  the  debased  courts  of  oriental 
despots  a  ritual  of  great  magnificence,  attaching  an 
exaggerated  importance  to  form  and  etiquette,  and  by 
the  symbolism  of  pomp  and  luxurious  display  endeav- 
ored to  impress  the  people  with  the  sacred  majesty 
of  the  emperor's  person,  so  the  church  also  developed 
a  ritual  of  extraordinary  beauty  and  splendor.  The 
church  grew  rich  and  powerful.  Her  coffers  were 
filled  with  the  voluntary  offerings  of  the  people  or 
with  the  property  of  a  declining  paganism.  Her  bish- 
ops became  personages  of  so  great  distinction  that  no 
officer  of  the  state  could  rival  them  in  power  and  con- 
sideration, and  even  emperors  stood  in  awe  of  them 
as  wielding  a  power  which  was  greater  than  their  own. 
Certainly  there  was  something  in  the  spectacle  of  such 
a  church  to  awe  the  mind  of  the  multitude  into  sub- 
mission. It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  paganism 
hastened  to  abandon  its  discredited  deities,  that  the 
Roman  world  became  a  nominally  Christian  one.  But 
there  is  a  dark  side  to  the  picture.     The  morality  of 


MORALITY  AND   THEOLOGY.  133 

the  age  was  no  better  under  Christian  emperors  than 
it  had  been  under  pagan ;  the  church  had  lost  much  of 
the  simplicity,  the  purity,  the  self-sacrifice  which  had 
marked  the  era  of  her  depression  and  apparent  weak- 
ness. The  records  of  the  period  are  full  of  incidents 
connected  with  the  ambition  and  rivalry  of  bishops ; 
schisms,  intrigues,  and  scenes  of  cruelty  and  bloodshed 
attendant  upon  episcopal  elections  were  far  from  being 
rare  occurrences.  We  read  of  them  in  Rome,  in  Con- 
stantinople, in  Alexandria,  in  Ephesus,  in  Antioch,  in 
Jerusalem.  If  they  happened  in  the  great  centres,  we 
may  be  sure  that  smaller  towns  and  cities  were  not  ex- 
empt from  the  same  disgrace.  These  things  constitute 
the  scandals  of  church  history.  There  have  been  times 
when  it  was  thought  a  Christian  duty  to  pass  over 
them  in  silence.  They  are  alluded  to  here  because 
they  have  a  close  connection  with  Christian  theology. 
The  want  of  charity,  the  hardness,  the  almost  system- 
atic cruelty  which  had  invaded  the  church,  which  were 
the  invariable  accompaniments  of  general  councils,  — 
these  things  hurt  the  Christian  ideal.  More  than 
anything  else,  they  were  insensibly  modifying  human 
convictions  about  the  character  of  God  and  His  rela- 
tion to  humanity.  The  high  officials  of  the  church 
claimed  to  represent  Deity  and  to  act  as  His  ambassa- 
dors or  delegates.  In  one  sense,  and  that  the  highest, 
all  men  are  called  to  the  performance  of  the  same 
function.  Men  represent  God  to  each  other,  and  if 
they  fulfill  their  task  unworthily  the  idea  of  God  is  de- 
graded in  human  estimation.  When  justice  and  char- 
ity and  humanity  prevail  in  the  life  of  society,  then 
God  is  most  truly  worshiped  as  He  is.  It  is  hard  to 
believe  in  the  divine  love  or  in  a  righteous  order  in 
the  world,  when  these  qualities  cease  to  be  reflected  in 


134  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

the  institutions  which  have  the  moulding  of  human 
character. 

The  moral  deterioration  which  marked  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries  had  affected  the  state  before  it 
reached  the  church.  It  may  not  have  been  possible 
for  the  church  to  resist  the  fatal  influences  which  were 
undermining  the  strength  of  the  ancient  civilization. 
Roman  imperialism  from  the  time  of  Constantine,  and 
largely  in  consequence  of  his  policy,  had  become  an  in- 
creasing burden,  crushing  out  the  life  and  spirit  of  the 
people.  It  had  destroyed  all  vestiges  of  self-govern- 
ment, and  had  substituted  an  elaborate  machinery 
which  had  to  be  maintained  by  force  and  at  great 
expense,  and  which  had  become  identified  in  the  public 
mind  with  an  odious,  exacting  tyranny.  The  condi- 
tions of  human  life  under  such  a  regime  were  growing 
cheerless  and  unattractive.  The  future  held  out  no 
prospect  of  improvement.  The  dark  cloud  which  had 
hovered  over  the  empire  for  two  centuries  was  now 
closing  in  around  it  and  was  portentous  of  fearful  dis- 
asters. The  barbarians  had  already,  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  fourth  century,  gained  a  footing  within  the  em- 
pire, and  no  occasional  victories  on  the  side  of  the 
Roman  armies  did  more  than  postpone  the  evil  day. 

It  is  not  surprising  therefore  that  Christian  people 
should  have  fled  from  the  cities  into  the  desert,  in  the 
hope  of  realizing  there  a  vision  of  the  kingdom  of 
God.  They  fled  from  a  church  that  was  becoming 
corrupt,  from  a  civilization  that  was  dying,  from  a 
state  of  society  of  whose  improvement  they  despaired. 
But  it  does  not  appear  that  they  carried  with  them 
in  their  flight  any  higher  or  truer  conception  of  the 
Deity  by  whose  fear  they  were  moved,  to  whom  they 
wished  to  render  a  more   acceptable   service.     The 


INTELLECTUAL  DECLINE.  135 

true  fear  of  God,  which  constitutes  the  motive  of  the 
religious  life,  was  assuming  the  shape  of  a  wild  and 
superstitious  terror,  such  as  afterwards  fell  upon  the 
races  that  responded  to  the  call  of  Mohammed. 

The  process  of  decline  may  be  seen  in  the  famous 
school  of  heathen  philosophy  at  Alexandria.  The 
earlier  Neo-Platonists  had  resisted  bravely  the  en- 
croachments of  orientalism  when  they  first  appeared 
in  the  Gnostic  sects.  In  the  spirit  of  Plato,  they  had 
tried  to  view  the  world  as  everywhere  instinct  with  a 
divine  life.  Inheriting  as  they  did  the  peculiar  qual- 
ity of  Hellenic  culture,  nothing  could  be  more  obnox- 
ious to  them  than  the  anathema  which  the  Gnostics 
flung  upon  the  whole  creation.  Jamblichus  and  Pro- 
clus,  their  successors,  not  only  failed  to  sustain  the 
high  intellectual  tone  of  their  predecessors,  but  showed 
the  debasing  influence  of  the  age  in  their  disposition  to 
put  magic  and  theurgy  in  the  place  of  the  ethical  and 
intellectual  effort  by  which,  according  to  earlier  Neo- 
Platonism,  elect  souls  might  rise  to  the  vision  and 
communion  of  the  gods.  Christian  theology  shared 
in  the  decline  which  had  overtaken  Greek  philosophy. 
The  theological  school  of  Alexandria,  which  had  main- 
tained itself  in  great  wealth  of  intellectual  and  spirit- 
ual power  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  ceased  to 
lead  the  church  in  the  East  after  the  fourth  century. 
As  Alexandria  declined  there  was  rising  in  Antioch 
another  school,  marked  by  a  different  tendency  and 
occupied  with  other  issues.  Its  leading  theologians, 
Chrysostom,  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  and  Theodoret, 
still  bore  the  impress  of  their  Greek  teachers,  and  still 
held  in  reverence  the  name  and  labors  of  Origen,  how- 
ever much  they  differed  in  their  methods.  But  they 
lived  in  an  age  when  tradition  was  fast  usurping  the 


136  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY, 

place  of  free  inquiry  in  theology.^  The  false  and 
superstitious  reverence  which  haunted  the  church  as 
intellectual  activity  declined,  —  the  last  expiring  influ- 
ence, it  may  have  been,  of  the  old  Egyptian  love  of  the 
mysterious  for  its  own  sake,  —  led  the  representatives 
of  the  school  of  Antioch  in  a  rationalistic  direction, 

^  y  The  time  when  tradition  was  first  formally  adopted  in  the 
East  as  a  better  method  than  free  theological  discussion  for  de- 
termining disputed  points,  dates  back  to  the  year  383,  if  we  may 
trust  the  historian  Socrates.  At  this  time  the  Emperor  Theodo- 
sius,  thinking  that  a  mutual  conference  of  the  bishops  would  heal 
the  dissensions  in  the  church,  sent  for  Nectarius,  the  Bishop  of 
Constantinople,  in  order  to  advise  with  him  on  the  best  method  of 
procedure.  In  the  emperor's  opinion  a  fair  discussion  was  the 
best  means  for  the  detection  and  removal  of  the  causes  of  dis- 
cord. The  emperor's  proposition  gave  Nectarius  the  greatest 
uneasiness,  for  he  was  a  man  unacquainted  with  theology,  who 
had  been  suddenly  transferred  from  the  army  to  the  episcopate, 
and  in  whose  case  it  had  been  necessary  to  hastily  run  through  the 
sacred  offices  from  baptism  to  consecration  as  bishop,  in  order 
that  he  might  occupy  his  see  without  delay.  Nectarius  therefore 
referred  the  matter  to  Agelius,  his  friend  and  sympathizer,  and 
he  turned  it  over  to  Sisinnius.  This  Sisinnius  was  said  to  have 
been  just  the  person  to  manage  a  conference.  He  was  eloquent 
and  possessed  great  experience,  well  read  in  Scripture  and  in 
philosophy,  and  above  all  was  aware  that  free  discussions,  far 
from  healing  divisions,  generally  make  them  worse,  and  even  cre- 
ate new  heresies  of  a  most  inveterate  kind.  He  therefore  ad- 
vised Nectarius  to  fall  back  upon  the  testimonies  of  the  ancients 
instead  of  entering  into  logical  debates.  Let  the  emperor,  he 
said,  ask  the  representatives  of  the  different  sects  if  they  had 
any  respect  for  the  fathers,  who  flourished  before  divisions  arose, 
or  whether  they  rejected  their  teaching  as  that  of  men  alienated 
from  the  Christian  faith.  If  they  took  the  latter  course,  they 
were  then  to  be  called  upon  to  anathematize  them,  and  the  mo- 
ment they  should  do  tliis,  the  people  would  arise  and  thi-ust  them 
out.  This  plan  commended  itself  to  the  bishop,  and  tlie  em- 
peror perceiving  its  wisdom  and  propriety  carried  it  out  with 
consummate  prudence.    Socrates,  Hist,  Eccles.f  v.  c.  10. 


RISE   OF  A    GREAT  CONTROVERSY.       137 

and  in  opposing  what  was  superstitious  or  irrational, 
tliey  were  in  danger  of  limiting  the  truth  of  the  incar- 
nation as  it  had  been  apprehended  by  the  masters  of 
Greek  theology. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  there  appeared 
the  first  traces  of  a  controversy  destined  to  endure 
with  varying  fortunes  for  three  hundred  years  be- 
fore its  issue  was  finally  determined.  It  is  strange 
that  a  controversy  of  such  duration,  absorbing  so  much 
of  the  thought  of  Christendom,  and  attended  by  such 
grave  consequences,  should  have  awakened  so  little  in- 
terest in  the  modern  theological  mind.  The  long  dis- 
cussion about  the  two  natures  of  Christ,  in  which  the 
opinion  of  the  ancient  church  was  so  widely  and  deeply 
divided,  occupied  the  attention  of  four  successive  gen- 
eral councils,  while  three  schisms  existing  to  this  day, 
two  of  them  of  large  extent,  in  Oriental  Christendom, 
attest  the  inefficacy  of  conciliar  decisions  resting  upon 
external  authority  to  promote  the  harmony  of  the 
church. 

The  christological  controversies,  as  they  are  called, 
turned  upon  the  question  whether  Christ  had  one  or 
two  natures  ;  or  more  exactly  whether  the  human  and 
divine  natures  were  in  Him  so  closely  united  as  to 
form  but  one  nature,  or  whether  they  still  remained  in 
their  distinctness,  conjoined,  but  not  in  themselves 
united,  and  always  capable  of  being  discerned  the  one 
from  the  other,  not  only  in  thought  but  in  the  histor- 
ical incidents  of  His  human  career.  Two  tendencies 
can  be  seen  running  through  the  ages  during  which 
the  church  was  occupied  with  the  solution  of  this 
problem.  One  of  these  tendencies,  which  proceeded 
from  the  home  of  Greek  theology,  where  the  influence 
of  Athanasius  still  lingered,  regarded  the  human  na- 


188  THE  LATIN   THEOLOGY. 

ture  as  in  its  constitution  so  closely  akin  to  the  divine, 
that  when  Christ  assumed  humanity  He  did  not  take 
something  in  its  nature  foreign  to  the  divine  princi- 
ple :  He  rather  by  His  incarnation  revealed  the  kin- 
ship of  the  human  with  the  divine,  and  the  perfected 
human  was  therefore  declared  to  be  identical  with 
that  which  was  most  divine.  Christ  did  not  exist  in 
two  distinct  natures  formally  united  or  combined  by 
some  bond  external  to  either  of  them,  but  there  was 
one  nature  only  of  the  God-man,  and  in  His  sacred 
person  the  human  and  the  divine  were  no  longer  to  be 
distinguished  even  in  thought,  much  less  in  the  reality 
of  His  earthly  life.  He  willed  and  acted,  He  spoke 
and  thought,  in  the  undivided  consciousness  of  His 
unique  personality,  —  a  consciousness  in  which  human 
nature  was  deified  and  identical  with  the  divine.  The 
other  tendency,  which  proceeded  from  the  school  of 
Antioch  and  was  most  acceptable  to  the  Western 
mind,  was  grounded  in  the  conviction  that  the  human 
and  the  divine  were  incompatible  with  or  alien  to  each 
other,  and  were  therefore  incapable  of  a  real  unity, 
and  remained  forever  distinct,  however  firm  the  con- 
junction into  which  they  had  been  brought  by  the  in- 
carnation. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remark  that  the  age  was 
no  longer  a  favorable  one  for  the  discussion  of  a 
theme  which  implied  so  profound  an  issue  as  the 
innermost  significance  of  the  human  in  its  relation  to 
the  divine.  The  controversies  upon  the  subject  were 
embarrassed  by  the  passions  and  local  excitements,  so 
easily  generated  in  the  bosom  of  a  declining  society. 
As  the  empire  grew  weaker,  the  fragments  of  which  it 
was  originally  composed  tended  to  fall  back  into  their 
original  isolation,  and  national   jealousies   combined 


DECISIONS   OF  THE   COUNCILS,  139 

with  theological  differences  to  make  Syria  and  Egypt 
so  tenacious  of  their  respective  attitudes  as  to  render  a 
common  tmderstanding  impossible.  The  controversies 
were  further  complicated  by  imperial  or  ecclesiastical 
intrigues  and  combinations.  Popular  instincts  were 
invoked  against  theological  distinctions.  Such  im- 
portant terms  as  nature  and  person  were  not  defined 
or  carefully  distinguished.  While  some  held  that  a 
nature  necessarily  implied  a  person  or  personality, 
others  contended  that  personality  was  distinct  from  the 
nature.  To  some  it  appeared  as  though  to  assert  two 
natures  in  Christ  was  to  teach  a  double  personality, 
while  their  opponents  maintained  that  one  personality 
might  be  the  tie  which  bound  the  natures  together.^ 
The  general  councils,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
fluctuated  in  their  decisions,  leaning  now  to  one  side, 
now  to  the  other.  The  third  general  council  held  at 
Ephesus  in  the  year  431  —  to  whose  acts  no  moral 
value  attaches  in  consequence  of  the  spirit  in  which 
it  was  conducted  —  gave  its  support  to  the  doctrine 
of  one  nature  in  Christ  as  it  had  been  expounded  by 
Cyril;  the  fourth  general  council  held  at  Chalcedon 
in  451  decided  that  there  were  two  natures  in  Christ 
remaining  forever  distinct ;  and  although  it  protested 
against  their  separation  in  the  unity  of  the  divine  per- 
son, it  did  not  attempt  to  explain  their  inner  relation- 
ship or  the  mode  of  their  union.  The  fifth  general 
council  held  at  Constantinople  in  553,  although  unable 

^  It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  defect  of  ancient 
thought,  as  Dorner  has  pointed  out,  was  the  lack  of  the  modern 
idea  of  personality  —  the  ego  as  self-conscious  spirit  moving 
toward  the  fulfillment  of  its  existence.  The  ancient  fathers  were 
feeling  their  way  toward  this  conception  in  the  use  of  such 
terms  as  essence,  being,  nature,  hypostasis,  prosopon,  etc.  Cf. 
Dorner,  Person  of  Christ  (Eng.  trans.),  A.  ii.  p.  510. 


140  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

to  set  aside  the  action  of  the  fourth  council,  did  what 
it  could  to  discredit  the  decision  reached  at  Chalcedon 
by  condemning  the  great  leaders  of  the  Antiochian 
school,  of  whose  attitude  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  was 
but  the  reflection.  And  finally,  the  sixth  general  coun- 
cil in  680  reasserted  in  another  form  the  decision  of 
the  fourth  council,  by  declaring  that  as  there  were  two 
natures  in  Christ,  so  also  there  were  two  wills,  the 
human  and  the  divine ;  but  following  Chalcedon  it  did 
not  recognize  their  ethical  oneness,  and  contented  itself 
with  declaring  that  the  human  will  followed  and  was 
subject  to  the  divine.^ 

1  If,  as  is  generally  admitted,  the  anathemas  of  Cyril  against 
Nestorius  received  the  approval  of  the  Council  of  Ephesus,  as 
the  letter  of  Pope  Leo  received  the  approval  of  the  Council  of 
Chalcedon,  it  is  plain  that  Leo  committed  the  error  which  the 
fourth  anathema  of  Cyril  condemned.  The  two  passages  here 
given  —  the  fourth  of  Cyril's  anathemas,  and  the  sentences  from 
Leo's  letter  —  are  certainly  in  downright  opposition  to  each  other. 
The  original  texts  are  given  in  Labbe,  Concilia,  tom.  iii.  p.  958, 
and  iv.  p.  1222.  They  may  also  be  found  in  Gieseler,  Eccles. 
Hist.,  i.  pp.  349-357. 

Et  Tis  ■trpoardTTOis  Sva\v,  l^yovv  vTroarrdaeai,  tos  re  iv  to7s  evayyeXiKoiis 
Koi  anoa-ToAiKoTs  avyy pd/jL/xaai  Siavefxci  (pwvhs,  ^  iirl  Xpiarf  napa  rcSv 
aylwv  Keyofx^vas,  ^  Trap'  avTOv  Trepi  kavTov,  koX  ras  /nev  ws  avOpwircfi  traph 
rhu  iK  6eov  xSyou  IdtKws  voovfxeu(f)  TrpoadTrret,  ras  Se  as  OeoirpeTreTs  ixovcfi 
Ty  6«  deov  iraTphs  xSycp,  avdOffxa  ecTco. 

(If  any  one  portions  out  to  the  two  persons  or  hypostases  the 
expressions  in  the  evangelical  or  apostolic  writings,  or  the  ex- 
pressions used  by  the  saints  concerning  Christ,  or  those  put  forth 
by  Him  concerning  Himself,  and  shall  assign  the  one  class  of  ex- 
pressions as  especially  belonging  to  the  man  as  distinct  from  the 
divine  Logos,  and  the  other  class  as  divine  to  the  Logos  only,  let 
him  be  anathema.) 

Quem  itaque  sicut  hominem  diabolica  tentat  astutia,  eidem 
sicut  Deo  angelica  famulantur  officia.  .  .  .  Ita  non  ejusdem  na- 
ture est  dicere  ;  Ego  et  Pater  unum  sumus  (Joan.  x.  30)  ;  et 
dicere  ;  Pater  major  me  est  (Joan.  xiv.  28). 


SPIRITUAL    CONCEPTION  OF   CHRIST.       141 

As  we  review  these  long-enduring  controversies 
about  the  person  of  Christ,  it  becomes  apparent  that 
their  varying  moods  and  results  are  the  visible  signs  of 
a  profound  inward  transformation  going  on  within  the 
church,  which  is  to  determine  the  character  of  Chris- 
tianity for  a  thousand  years  until  another  transforma- 
tion, equally  profound  and  far-reaching,  shall  reverse 
the  spirit  and  the  bent  of  centuries.  From  the  time 
of  the  Nestorian  controversy,  when  the  unfortunate 
patriarch  of  Constantinople  protested  in  vain  against  / 
the  application  to  Mary  of  the  title.  Mother  of  God,  y 
a  title  heathen  in  its  origin,  and  in  its  Christian  use 
obscuring  the  meaning  of  the  incarnation,^  it  is  in- 
creasingly evident  that  the  earlier  and  more  spiritual 
conception  of  Christ  as  the  divine  immanence  in  hu- 
manity is  disappearing  from  the  church.  The  vision 
of  the  essential  Christ  as  He  existed  from  eternity,  and 
as  He  still  revealed  Himself  to  the  world,  was  giving 
way  to  a  limited  portrait  of  His  historical  existence 
in  which  His  mother  and  His  brethren,  according  to 
the  earthly  relationship,  were  rising  into  a  prominence 
which  Christ  Himself  had  not  countenanced.  The 
woman  who  lifted  up  her  voice  in  the  crowd  and  ex- 
claimed, Blessed  is  the  womb  that  bare  Thee  and  the 
paps  which  Thou  hast  sucked^  was  now  becoming,  as 

(Therefore  just  as  diabolical  subtilty  tempts  Him  as  man,  so 
also  angelical  ministrants  wait  upon  Him  as  God.  ...  It  does 
not  belong  to  one  and  the  same  nature  to  say,  I  and  my  Father 
are  one^  and  to  say,  My  Father  is  greater  than  I.) 

1  Upon  the  phrase,  "Mother  of  God,"  as  applied  to  Mary, 
Coleridge  remarks  :  "  An  epithet  which  conceals  half  of  a  truth, 
the  power  and  special  concerningness  of  wliich  relatively  to  our 
redemption  by  Christ  depend  on  our  knowledge  of  the  whole,  is 
a  deceptive  and  dangerously  deceptive  epithet."  —  Coleridge, 
Works,  v.  p.  60,  Am.  ed. 


142  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

it  were,  the  typical  spokesman  of  the  church,  whether 
in  Alexandria  or  Asia  Minor,  in  the  East  or  in  the 
West.  The  spiritual  relationship  was  becoming  subor- 
dinated to  the  relationship  after  the  flesh,  and  the 
words  of  Christ  were  becoming  unintelligible,  —  Nay^ 
rather  blessed  is  he  that  heareth  the  will  of  God  and 
keepeth  it :  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  my  Father  which 
is  in  heaven  the  same  is  my  mother  and  sister  and 
brother.  In  proportion  as  Christian  faith  was  losing 
its  hold  on  the  essential  Christ,  with  greater  tenacity 
did  it  cling  to  the  historical  Christ.  In  proportion  as 
men  ceased  to  realize  the  divine  immanence  in  human- 
ity, they  emphasized  the  fact  that  God  had  once 
blessed  the  world  in  visible  form,  and  dwelt  with  in- 
creasing devotion  upon  the  historic  environment  of  his 
earthly  life.  The  worship  of  Mary,  the  cultus  of 
apostles,  became  a  means  to  this  end  by  enabling  the 
lower  intelligence  to  realize  more  easily  the  historic 
fact  of  an  incarnation,  or  to  deepen  the  vividness  of 
its  apprehension.  From  this  time  the  Latin  church 
began  to  realize  more  distinctly  her  peculiar  mission, 
—  to  impress  upon  the  new  races  that  there  had  once 
been  a  manifestation  of  God  in  the  flesh.  So  long  as 
that  belief  remained,  the  world  was  the  richer  for  it; 
and  though  humanity  went  on  its  way  groping  in  the 
dim  light  of  an  eclipse  of  the  fuller  faith,  yet  it  could 
never  again  become  so  helpless  or  forsaken  as  before 
the  advent  of  Christ. 

Whatever  weight  is  to  be  attached  to  the  conflicting 
utterances  of  the  general  councils  on  the  subject  of 
the  person  of  Christ,  one  thing  is  clear  —  that  they  did 
not  and  could  not  control  a  mighty  sentiment  silently 
operating  in  the  church,  whose  growth  was  stimulated 
by  causes,  the  influence  of  which  could  not  at  tho  time 


THE  SENTIMENT  OF  CHRISTENDOM.      143 

be-  detected  or  measured.  While  theologians  in  the 
councils  were  carefully  selecting  their  language  in 
order  to  express  some  delicate  shade  of  meaning,  or 
were  devising  compromises  by  which  the  peace  of  the 
church  might  be  obtained,  the  sentiment  of  Christen- 
dom was  slowly  gravitating  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
human  and  the  divine  were  not  only  distinct  from,  but 
alien  to,  each  other ;  and  no  assertion,  however  care- 
fully balanced,  in  regard  to  their  union  in  Christ,  could 
overcome  the  conviction  that  an  infinite  impassable 
gulf  divided  and  separated  humanity  from  God.  The 
doctrine  of  the  two  natures  which  Eome  and  Antioch 
agreed  in  asserting  at  Chalcedon  in  opposition  to  Al- 
exandria, when  it  had  been  filtered  through  the  ex- 
perience of  later  ages,  became  a  principle  of  dualism 
which  sanctioned  the  divorce  between  the  human  and 
the  divine,  the  secular  and  the  religious,  the  body  and 
the  spirit.  The  dualism  of  the  two  natures  runs 
through  all  the  institutions  of  the  Middle  Ages,  affect- 
ing not  only  the  religious  experience,  but  the  political 
and  social  life  of  Christendom.  As  a  theological  prin- 
ciple, it  underlies  asceticism  in  all  its  forms ;  it  creates 
and  enforces  the  distinction  between  sacred  and  pro- 
fane things,  holy  days  and  common  days,  between  the 
clergy  and  the  people,  the  church  and  the  world,  the 
pope  and  the  emperor,  the  city  of  God  and  the  city  of 
man.  As  a  theological  principle  it  reigned  supreme 
from  the  time  of  Augustine  till  the  age  of  the  Refor- 
mation. 

IV. 

The  most  important  event  in  the  history  of  the 
Latin  church  was  the  conversion  of  Augustine  in  the 
year  387.  It  was  the  mission  of  Augustine  to  per- 
sonate the  crisis  through  which  the  church  and  the 


144  THE  LATIN   THEOLOGY. 

world  of  his  time  were  passing.  In  his  experience  we 
may  read  as  in  a  mirror  the  inward  moods  of  the 
darkest  and  saddest  age  in  human  history.  All  the 
sinister  tendencies  which  had  been  gathering  strength 
for  generations  met  in  his  mind.  The  decline  of  the 
Roman  empire,  which  had  become  so  evident  that  men 
of  great  capacity  no  longer  looked  to  it  as  a  sphere 
in  which  the  highest  ambition  for  usefulness  might  be 
gratified  ;  the  decline  of  intellectual  activity,  accom- 
panying necessarily  the  decadence  of  human  hopes  for 
this  world  ;  the  skepticism  which  looked  upon  philos- 
ophy as  a  vain  struggle  for  the  attainment  of  truth ; 
the  feeling  that  things  were  out  of  joint,  that  evils 
whose  horror  and  extent  the  mind  could  not  fathom 
were  at  hand,  and  could  not  be  postponed  much  longer ; 
the  sense  of  sin,  which,  in  its  crudest  shapes  as  it  ap- 
pears in  history,  is  the  inward  conviction  that  some- 
thing is  wrong  in  the  relation  of  the  world  to  the  un- 
seen powers,  and  is  drawing  down  upon  it  the  divine 
vengeance,  —  these  were  the  dominant  moods  of  the 
age  which  gave  birth  to  Augustine.  He  lived  them 
out  in  his  own  experience,  and  became  therefore  the 
type  of  his  time;  he  reveals  how  other  men  were 
thinking,  how  the  age  itself  was  tending ;  he  discloses 
the  inner  process  of  transition  from  heathenism  to 
Latin  Christianity.  He  was  as  truly  a  prophet  to  the 
Eoman  world  as  was  Mohammed,  two  centuries  later, 
to  the  Arabian  races,  —  both  of  them  struggling  with 
the  same  great  issues  of  human  destiny. 

The  conversion  of  Augustine  is  an  event  inexplica- 
ble unless  we  go  beneath  the  surface  of  the  conven- 
tional language  used  in  describing  it.  One  may  read 
his  "Confessions,"  and  feel  that  the  secret  of  the 
change  has  evaded  him.    As  in  all  similar  cases,  when- 


CONVERSION  OF  AUGUSTINE.  145 

ever  they  occur,  the  actor  himseK  is  not  capable  of 
giving  an  intelligible  explanation  of  that  which  has 
befallen  him.  The  full  significance  of  Augustine's 
conversion  becomes  apparent  only  when  we  follow  his 
career  to  its  close,  or  interpret  it  in  the  institutions 
upon  which  he  impressed  his  convictions. 

The  outward  life  of  Augustine  before  his  conversion 
was  the  ordinary  life  of  a  young  and  ambitious  Ro- 
man, looking  forward  to  success  and  distinction  in  the 
customary  ways,  except  that  he  possessed  extraordi- 
nary talents  which  seemed  to  promise  an  unusually 
brilliant  career.  Despite  the  sins  of  his  earlier  years 
and  of  a  certain  want  of  honor  and  sensitiveness  in 
his  relationships  which  still  appears  strange  to  us,  not- 
withstanding our  allowance  for  the  social  usages  of  an 
age  very  unlike  our  own,  there  was  also  something  in 
Augustine's  early  life  which  represents  the  serious 
bent  of  his  nature.  He  was  interested  in  the  search 
for  truth  and  studied  Greek  philosophy  as  a  means  to 
its  attainment.  That  which  most  of  all  attracted  him 
in  the  problems  of  human  thought  was  the  question 
concerning  the  origin  of  evil.  It  was  therefore  a  sig- 
nificant fact  that  in  his  early  life  he  became  a  Mani- 
chsean  and  for  nine  years  remained  a  member  of  this 
sect,  or  till  he  had  reached  the  age  of  thirty.  In  the 
dualism  of  the  Manichaean  theosophy,  which  explained 
the  predominance  of  evil  by  the  existence  of  an  evil 
deity,  who  from  all  eternity  combated  the  good  deity 
and  who  furnished  the  larger  part  of  the  material  out 
of  which  the  world  had  been  made,  there  was  some- 
thing which  appealed  to  the  darker  moods  of  thought- 
ful men  in  the  fourth  century.  Manichseism  was  in  no 
respect  a  Christian  system  of  thought,  although  it  had 
adopted  a  Christian  nomenclature,  and  it  showed  its 
10 


146  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

divergence  from  the  Christian  idea  in  another  respect 
by  denying  the  redemption  of  humanity  in  Christ. 
Such  a  world  as  this  was  incapable  of  being  redeemed, 
—  the  only  hope  was  in  a  principle  of  election  by  which 
a  few  might  be  saved. 

Even  though  Augustine  turned  away  from  such 
teaching  and  believed  he  had  renounced  it,  it  was  im- 
possible that  it  should  not  have  left  its  traces  stamped 
indelibly  upon  his  mind,  to  reappear  again  under 
other  forms,  in  different  combinations.  The  next  stage 
in  his  mental  career  was  one  of  skepticism,  in  which 
he  doubted  if  the  reason  was  capable  of  attaining 
the  truth.  It  was  in  this  mood,  which  extended  over 
some  live  years  of  his  life,  that  he  went  to  Milan  about 
the  year  384,  in  the  exercise  of  his  profession  as  a 
teacher  of  rhetoric.  So  far,  his  life  from  a  human 
point  of  view  had  not  been  successful ;  he  had  not 
achieved  the  wealth  or  the  honor  which  he  was  entitled 
to  expect;  his  mind  was  in  a  perturbed  unsettled  condi- 
tion, ready  to  receive  the  strongest  influence  that  could 
be  brought  to  bear  upon  it.  His  familiarity  with  dif- 
ferent phases  of  thought,  the  various  changes  which 
he  had  already  gone  through  in  his  mental  experience, 
the  profound  dissatisfaction  which  he  felt  with  himself 
and  with  the  world,  —  these  things  were  undermining 
his  intellectual  integrity.  For  such  a  man  whose  will 
was  weak  and  whose  passions  were  powerful,  whose 
strength  lay  chiefly  in  the  life  of  the  emotions,  who 
had  no  canon  for  the  recognition  of  truth,  whose  intel- 
lectual stability  had  been  shaken  by  so  many  changes 
of  opinion,  there  was  but  one  resort  at  last,  —  to  fall 
back  upon  some  external  authority,  if  any  such  existed, 
powerful  enough  to  subdue  the  intellect,  to  open  up  a 
channel  for  the  emotions,  and  to  hold  the  will  to  a 
definite  purpose. 


ABANDONMENT  OF  THE  REASON.         147 

Hitherto  Augustine  does  not  seem  to  have  had  much 
respect  for  the  church ;  it  probably  appeared  to  him 
as  to  most  educated  Romans  as  offering  no  sphere  for 
thoughtful  persons.  That  it  had  been  the  object  of 
his  mother's  devoted  love  was  no  recommendation  in 
his  eyes,  for  it  had  been  one  of  his  principles  to  refuse 
to  be  led  by  a  woman's  influence.  But  at  Milan,  where 
the  church  was  administered  by  Ambrose,  it  was  im- 
possible that  a  genuine  Roman  should  not  be  im- 
pressed with  a  profound  respect  for  the  power  which 
it  exerted  and  the  future  which  awaited  it.  In  the 
fact  of  Ambrose  turning  away  from  the  service  of  the 
state  to  what  must  have  seemed  a  nobler  opportunity, 
was  an  indication  that  far-sighted  men  had  ceased  to 
expect  anything  from  the  empire  and  were  looking 
elsewhere.  The  church  was  already  undergoing  a  mo- 
mentous change,  —  it  was  beginning  to  grow  into  the 
state,  as  the  state  was  tending  to  become  a  mere  func- 
tion of  the  church.  Already  the  church  must  have 
appeared  as  stronger  than  the  state  when  a  bishop  like 
Ambrose  could  successfully  defy  a  Roman  empress 
and  humiliate  under  his  spiritual  authority  an  emperor 
like  Theodosius.  Augustine  could  not  remain  insensi- 
ble to  the  spectacle  of  such  a  church  and  of  such  a 
bishop,  —  a  predecessor  in  all  but  the  name  of  the 
greatest  popes  of  the  Middle  Ages.  His  contempt  for 
the  church  gradually  gave  way  to  a  feeling  of  rever- 
ence. As  he  attended  its  services  and  was  moved  by 
the  eloquence  of  the  great  bishop,  as  he  wept  silently 
by  the  side  of  his  mother  during  the  singing  of  the 
hymns  by  the  great  congregation,  a  change  was  (dom- 
ing over  his  spirit.  He  was  renouncing  himself,  his 
reason,  his  whole  past  life,  in  the  presence  of  an  ex- 
ternal authority,  whose  power  and  splendor  awed  while 


148  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

it  charmed  his  imagination,  —  a  church  in  which  truth 
assumed  a  concrete,  tangible  form  for  the  practical 
control  and  guidance  of  life. 

There  was  an  important  step  in  the  process  by 
which  Augustine's  conversion  was  accomplished  which 
deserves  a  moment's  notice.  It  is  a  phase  of  his  men- 
tal or  religious  history  upon  which  he  does  not  dwell 
in  his  "Confessions,"  nor  is  it  difficult  to  understand 
why  in  his  later  life  he  should  pass  it  over  so  lightly.  ^ 
While  he  was  still  in  Milan  under  the  influence  of 
Ambrose,  he  was  also  studying  the  Platonists  as  he 
called  them  —  the  Alexandrian  school  of  philosophers 

—  and  was  coming  to  understand  how,  by  the  applica- 
tion of  their  method  to  Christian  theology,  there  might 
be  a  more  rational  and  liberal  way  of  interpreting  the 
doctrines  of  the  church  than  he  had  hitherto  met.  He 
admits,  for  example,^  that  there  was  one  difficulty 
which  he  had  to  overcome  before  entering  the  church, 

—  the  crude  anthropomorphic  conception  of  Deity  as 
localized  in  space,  which  he  had  always  supposed  was 
the  Christian  idea  of  God,  —  an  idea  which  TertuUian 
had  advocated  and  which  was  certainly  the  popular 
view.  The  traces  of  this  earlier  theology,  by  means  of 
which  Augustine  sufficiently  satisfied  his  reason  while 
yet  making  the  sacrifice*of  reason,  are  to  be  found  in 
those  of  his  writings  which  were  produced  in  the  years 
immediately  following  his  conversion,  —  before  the  ne- 
cessities of  ecclesiastical  administration  in  the  see  of 
Hippo  had  revolutionized  his  intellectual  methods  or 
led  him  to  economize  the  truth  in  the  interest  of  the 

^  Confess.,  vi.  5,  and  viii.  2.  The  Confessions  were  written 
after  Augustine  became  Bishop  of  Hippo.  Cf.  Owen,  Evenings 
with  the  Skeptics,  ii.  p.  173. 

^  Confess.,  vi.  4. 


AUGUSTINE'S  EARLIER   THEOLOGY,        149 

church,  or  to  adjust  it  to  the  comprehension  of  a  bar- 
barous people.  In  these  treatises  ^  he  speaks  like 
Athanasius,  of  Deity  as  immanent  in  the  world,  of  the 
incarnation  as  the  necessary  mode  of  the  divine  mani- 
festation,—  a  necessity  inherent  in  the  divine  nature,  of 
the  love  of  God  as  the  ground  or  determination  of  His 
will,  of  man  as  having  power  to  read  the  divine  charac- 
ter because  of  an  inward  light  in  the  reason  which  is  the 
evidence  of  the  indwelling  God,  of  the  will  as  free  and 
having  power  to  follow  the  right,  of  the  purification  of 
the  soul  as  the  way  to  the  knowledge  of  and  union  with 
the  divine.  But  thoughts  like  these  only  served  Au- 
gustine  in  the  epoch  of  his  transition;  in  his  later 
writings  they  disappear,  giving  way  to  a  set  of  dogmas 
more  congenial  to  the  Latin  mind,  or  more  in  harmony 
with  the  aim  of  the  Latin  church  as  Augustine  con- 
strued it. 

For  it  was  to  the  church  as  it  had  grown  up  in  Latin 
Christendom  that  Augustine  had  been  converted,  and 
great  as  were  the  innovations  which  he  sanctioned 
upon  the  theories  of  his  predecessors,  it  was  still  to  the 
Latin  church  as  an  institution  that  he  consecrated  the 
labors  of  his  life.  As  he  came  in  contact  with  sects  or 
heresies  which  denied  its  authority  or  rejected  its  es- 
sential principle,  his  conception  of  it  became  more 
clear  and  dogmatic ;  ^  and  it  may  be  said  of  his  life- 

1  Among  them  are  the  works  entitled  De  moribus  ecclesicB 
CatholiccB  et  Manichceorum,  De  vera  religioner  De  libero  arhitrio, 
and  De  utilitate  credendi. 

2  It  was  a  characteristic  of  Augustine  that  he  depended  so 
largely  upon  controversy  to  determine  his  thought.  He  had  not 
the  constructive  power  of  a  consecutive  thinker.  The  late  Canon 
Mozley,  who  had  made  a  special  study  of  his  controversial  writ- 
ings and  was  regarded  as  having  an  unusual  gift  for  analyzing 
character,  says  of  him  as  a  controversialist :    "  In  argument  he 


150  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY, 

work  as  Bishop  of  Hippo,  that  its  predominant  aim  was 
.\  to  adjust  social  institutions  and  even  humanity  itself 
to  the  claims  of  a  hierarchy  divinely  appointed  to 
teach  and  to  rule  the  world. 

Against  the  Manichaeans,  with  whom  he  conducted 
his  first  controversy,  Augustine  maintained  the  author- 
ity of  the  church  to  teach.  The  same  argument  which 
TertuUian  and  Irenseus  had  employed  is  again  brought 
forward,  but  with  the  increased  weight  which  two  cen- 
turies of  growth  had  given  to  the  power  and  magnifi- 
cence of  the  hierarchy.  Truth  is  a  "  deposit "  in- 
trusted to  the  episcopate  for  preservation ;  it  is  to  be 
found  only  within  the  church,  and  to  the  sanction  of 
the  church  even  Scripture  owes  its  authority.^  The 
church  for  which  is  claimed  such  supreme  authority  is 
not  the  consentient  reason  of  those  who  are  enlightened 
by  a  divine  teacher  speaking  within  the  soul,  —  it  is 
the  institution  of  which  the  episcopate  holds  the  char- 
ter, which  is  possessed  of  a  "  deposit "  intrusted  to  it  by 
a  power  external  to  itself.  The  leading  notes  of  such 
a  church,  as  they  were  presented  by  Augustine  to  the 

was  not  too  deep  ;  to  have  been  so  would  have  very  much  ob- 
structed his  access  to  the  mind  of  the  mass,  and  prevented  him 
from  getting  hold  of  the  ear  of  the  church  at  large.  He  un- 
doubtedly dealt  with  profound  questions,  but  his  mode  of  dealing 
with  them  was  not  such  as  to  entangle  him  in  knots  and  intrica- 
cies arising  from  the  disposition  to  do  justice  to  all  sides  of 
truth."  In  some  parts  of  the  Manichsean  controversy  "  he  re- 
turned neat  answers  rather  than  full  or  final  answers."  In  the 
Pelagian  controversy,  *'  he  did  not  allow  the  unity  and  simplicity 
of  his  answers  to  be  at  all  interfered  with  by  large  and  inclusive 
views  of  truth.  To  the  extreme  contradictory  on  the  one  side, 
he  gave  the  extreme  contradictory  on  the  other."  —  Ruling  Ideas 
of  Early  Ages,  p.  255. 

^  Contra  Epistolam  Manichcei,  c.  6  :  "  Ego  vero  evangelic  non 
crederem,  nisi  me  catholicffl  ecclesise  commoveret  auctoritas." 


AUGUSTINE'S  IDEA    OF  THE   CHURCH.      151 

Manichseans,  are  its  power,  its  splendor,  its  miraculous 
gifts,  its  vast  extension,  its  long  succession  of  bishops 
coming  down  through  the  ages  from  the  see  of  Peter.^ 
Unless  it  had  possessed  these  credentials,  its  author- 
ity would  have  gone  for  little  or  nothing  with  Augus- 
tine. 

In  his  controversy  with  the  Donatists,  the  progress 
of  Augustine  in  fixing  the  idea  of  the  church  is  still 
further  manifest,  and  there  is  also  revealed  the  change 
in  his  conception  of  Deity  which  such  a  view  of  the 
church  necessarily  implied.  The  Donatists  had  al- 
ready existed  as  a  sect  in  North  Africa  for  nearly  a 
century  when  Augustine  was  led  to  take  up  the  con- 
troversy against  them.  They  had  their  origin  in  a 
protest  against  the  laxity  which  allowed  the  apostates, 
in  the  Diocletian  persecutions,  to  be  received  back 
again  into  the  communion  of  the  Catholic  church,  and, 
in  accordance  with  the  view  which  had  been  held  by 
Montanists  and  Novatians,  they  contended  that  the 
church  consisted  only  of  those  who  were  known  or  be- 
lieved to  be  faithful.  Hence  they  had  organized  as  a 
separate  community,  calling  themselves  the  only  true 
church,  and,  toward  the  end  of  the  fourth  century, 
when  Augustine  came  as  bishop  to  Hippo,  they  were 
a  formidable  body  in  numbers  and  influence.  In  con- 
sequence of  the  persecution  which  they  had  encoun- 
tered from  the  Roman  emperors,  who  had  endeavored 
to  extirpate  a  sect  which  disturbed  the  external  unity 
of  the  church,  the  Donatists  had  assumed  another 
principle,  —  that  it  was  sinful  for  the  church  to  depend 
upon  the  state  for  protection ;  that  between  church 
and  state  there  should  be  no  connection  whatever.  A 
sect  with  such  tenets  could  not  but  be  obnoxious  to 
1  Contra  Ep.  Man.,  c.  5. 


/ 


152  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY, 

one,  like  Augustine,  bent  on  maintaining  the  undis- 
puted authority  and  unity  of  the  church,  and  who,  as 
a  practical  administrator  of  a  diocese,  was  constantly 
witnessing  the  confusion  and  weakness  which  its  pres- 
ence created.  He  was  moderate  at  first  in  his  opposi- 
tion, and  endeavored  by  conciliatory  measures  to  meet 
the  evil.  But  it  was  a  feature  of  Augustine  as  a  con- 
troversialist, as  it  was,  also,  of  TertuUian,  that  he  al- 
ways appeared  as  a  lawyer  holding  a  brief  for  the 
church ;  and  it  became  his  object  to  find  some  prin- 
ciple which  would  completely  subvert  the  position  of 
his  adversaries.  If  it  was  successful,  if  it  shut  the 
mouths  of  opponents,  such  a  principle  was  to  him  its 
own  verification.  In  the  case  of  the  Donatists,  it  was 
necessary  to  assert,  if  they  were  to  be  overcome,  that 
the  church,  by  its  very  nature,  must  include  the  un- 
faithful and  the  wicked,  —  the  chaff  was  inseparable 
from  the  wheat  in  this  world,  the  tares  must  grow  until 
the  harvest. 

But  such  an  attitude  could  not  be  maintained  with- 
out going  further,  and  Augustine  seems  to  have  hesi- 
tated before  taking  a  step  which,  when  once  accepted 
and  avowed,  entailed  momentous  consequences.  Au- 
gustine could  not  conceive  of  the  church  otherwise 
than  he  had  first  known  it,  —  the  majestic  institution 
which  had  borne  down  his  doubts  and  commanded  the 
surrender  of  his  reason,  his  conscience,  and  his  will. 
He  had  taken  the  church  as  he  found  it ;  he  had  ac- 
cepted unhesitatingly  the  dictum  of  Cyprian,  that  out- 
side of  this  church  there  was  no  salvation,  —  that  he 
who  had  not  the  church  as  his  mother  could  not  have 
God  as  his  father.  It  was  not  enough,  therefore,  to 
assert  against  the  Donatists  the  divine  right  of  the 
hierarchy  to  an  authority  which  required  implicit  obe- 


AUGUSTINE'S  IDEA    OF  THE   CHURCH.     153 

dience  on  the  part  of  those  only  who  acknowledged 
that  authority.  The  nature  of  the  church  demanded 
that  all  men  shoidd  submit  to  its  sway.  The  church 
was  not  placed  in  the  world  in  order  to  offer  a  proba- 
tion to  men,  as  Cyprian  had  thought.  The  idea  of 
probation  was  becoming  repugnant  to  the  mind  of  Au- 
gustine. There  was  rising  in  his  soul  the  idea  of  God 
as  a  being  who  intended  to  rule  this  world,  and  did 
actually  do  so.  To  leave  men  to  decide  for  themselves 
the  great  issues  of  their  destiny  was  to  leave  God  out 
of  the  question.  The  church  was  here  by  divine  ap- 
pointment, and  if  so  it  was  the  divine  will  that  all 
men  should  come  into  it ;  and  if  they  would  not  come 
of  themselves,  they  must  be  forced  to  do  so  ;  and  if 
the  church  lacked  the  power  of  compulsion,  it  was  the 
sacred  duty  which  the  state  owed  to  the  church  to 
come  to  its  rescue,  and  by  the  might  of  the  sword 
"  compel  them  to  come  in,"  that  the  church  might  be 
filled.1 

The  Manichaeans  denied  that  the  Catholic  church 
was  the  sole  depository  of  truth ;  the  Donatists  denied 
that  it  had  a  divine  right  to  rule  the  conscience ;  but 
there  was  growing  up  a  third  tendency  which,  as  Au- 
gustine and  others  clearly  perceived,  denied  that  the 
church  had  any  real  motive  for  existence.  In  the  sys- 
tem of  Pelagius  such  a  church  as  Augustine  so  rigor- 
ously and  devoutly  upheld  was  simply  unnecessary ;  it 
subserved  no  indispensable  purpose  in  the  process  of 
salvation  ;  man  could  be  saved  without  it ;  the  human 
will  was  sufficient  to  itself ;  it  had  power  to  turn  away 
from  evil  and  follow  righteousness ;  or,  if  necessary, 
God  would  vouchsafe  His  special  aid  to  its  assistance. 
Exactly  what  the  Pelagians  held,  it  may  be  difficult  to 
1  Epistola  (93)  ad  Vincentium. 


154  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

determine,^  but  it  is  clear  what  tbeir  opponents  thought 
they  held,  or  ought  to  hold,  and  this  is  more  important 
to  the  course  of  the  history  than  the  actual  belief  of 
the  famous  heresiarch  who  personated  to  the  Latin 
mind  the  lowest  stage  of  intellectual  and  religious  de- 
pravity. 

When  we  recall  the  prominence  of  the  church  in 

1  If  the  Pelagians  were  resting  upon  the  same  principle  that 
Augustine  had  adopted,  —  the  absolute  separation  of  humanity 
from  God,  and  yet  held  man  to  be  capable  of  attaining  salvation 
by  his  own  unaided  efforts,  —  their  views  were  certainly  most  per- 
nicious, and  would  have  substituted  a  sort  of  Confucian  morality 
in  the  place  of  the  religion  of  Christ.  But  it  is  more  likely  that 
their  teaching  was  the  echo  of  an  earlier  and  higher  theology  im- 
perfectly apprehended,  if,  indeed,  it  was  any  longer  capable  of 
apprehension  by  the  Latin  mind  on  account  of  its  inversion  of  the 
true  relationship  between  Christ  and  the  church.  The  contempo- 
rary Greek  theologians  could  see  no  harm  in  Pelagius's  teaching, 
and  Greek  synods  declined  to  condemn  it,  —  a  fact  which  the 
Latins  could  only  explain  on  the  supposition  that  Pelagius  dis- 
sembled his  opinions.  The  third  general  council,  it  is  true,  con- 
demned Pelagianism ;  this  seems  to  have  been  the  result  of  an 
understanding  between  Cyril  and  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  by  which 
Cyril  anathematized  the  Latin  heretic,  while  the  pope  gave  his 
voice  against  the  Greek  heretic,  Nestorius,  who  had  also  incurred 
his  displeasure  by  sheltering  the  Pelagians  who  fled  to  Constan- 
tinople. Because  they  were  condemned  together,  it  has  been 
thought  by  some  that  there  was  a  subtle  connection  between  Pe- 
lagianism and  Nestorianism  ;  but  there  was  in  reality  a  closer 
connection  between  Nestorianism  and  Augustinianism.  If  the 
third  council  condemned  Pelagius,  it  did  not  undertake  to  say  in 
what  his  error  consisted  ;  and  the  two  tenets  of  Pelagius  which 
were  most  obnoxious  to  Augustine,  namely,  that  original  sin  im- 
plies no  guilt  in  Adam's  descendants,  and  that  the  will  of  every 
man  is  free  to  choose  good  or  evil,  have  remained  the  teaching  of 
the  Greek  church  to  this  day.  A  summary  of  what  the  Pela- 
gians asserted  against  Augustine,  as  shown  by  their  own  state- 
ments, and  not  those  of  their  opponents,  is  given  in  Gieselei; 
Eccles.  Hist.,  i.  383. 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF  PELAGIANISM.        155 

the  history  of  Latin  Christendom  from  the  time  of 
Clement  of  Rome  to  Augustine,  we  are  forced  to  ad- 
mit that  the  same  idea  underlay  the  famous  Pelagian 
controversy.  Consciously  or  unconsciously  it  was  the 
church,  as  the  Latins  conceived  it,  which  formed  the 
determining  motive  in  the  doctrines  concerning  the 
nature  of  sin  and  redemption,  of  grace  and  free-will.^ 
When  it  is  remembered  that  the  result  of  Augustine's, 
teaching  upon  these  points  was  to  subject  men  to  the 
absolute  authority  of  the  Latin  church,  it  is  evident 
that  this  must  have  been  also  the  intention  which, 
however  veiled,  or  subtly  mixed  with  other  tendencies, 
controlled  his  thought  and  influenced  his  conclusions. 
The  church  had  already,  before  Augustine's  time, 
taken  shape  in  the  Latin  mind  as  a  vast,  pervasive, 
mysterious  entity,  a  personification  as  it  were  of  the 
hierarchy  or  episcopate,  a  living  corporate  existence 
endowed  from  without  with  all  the  powers,  the  super- 
natural gifts  and  grace  for  the  salvation  of  men.  In 
one  sense,  it  is  true,  all  men  who  were  in  communion 
with  the  Catholic  episcopate  were  spoken  of  as  the 
church.  But  in  the  most  important  sense,  the  church, 
as  teaching  and  ruling  the  world,  was  not  the  people 
but  the  hierarchy  ;  the  grace  that  saved  was  deposited 
primarily  not  in  the  congregation,  but  in  the  bishops, 
by  whom  it  was  administered  to  the  people.  Thus  the 
church  had  taken  the  place  of  Christ  as  the  way  of 
redemption,  and  had  become  the  mediator  between 
God  and  man.  Such  a  view  of  the  church  implied 
that  the  departure  of  Christ  from  the  world  was  real 

1  "  The  Augustianian  theology  coincided  with  the  tendencies 
of  the  age  towards  the  growth  of  the  strong  sacerdotal  system  ; 
and  the  sacerdotal  system  reconciled  Christendom  with  the  Au- 
gustinian  theology."  —  Milman,  Latin  Christianity,  i.  p.  172. 


166  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY, 

and  complete;  that  the  episcopate  was  appointed  to 
teach  and  to  save  as  vicars  of  the  absent  Lord.  The 
church  moulding  itself  by  a  natural  instinct  after  the 
empire,  and  reaching  out  toward  the  centralization  of 
authority  in  the  most  convenient  and  practical  form, 
must,  like  the  civil  government  vested  in  the  emperor, 
regard  its  power  as  derived  not  from  the  people  as 
their  representative,  but  as  coming  from  a  source 
external  to  and  above  them.  In  other  words,  Latin 
Christianity  had  reverted  to  a  deistic  basis,  in  which 
God  is  conceived  as  existing  apart  from  the  world 
in  the  distant  heavens,  regulating  human  affairs  from 
without  through  the  agency  of  commissioned  dele- 
gates. 

To  this  church  it  was  that  Augustine  had  been 
converted,  although  the  full  significance  of  his  con- 
version was  not  at  once  apparent,  and  for  years  his 
thought  was  in  confusion  in  consequence  of  the  lin- 
gering influence  of  a  higher  theology.  But  from  the 
time  when  he  became  Bishop  of  Hippo,  the  ecclesias- 
tical leaven  began  to  work  most  powerfully,  and  truth, 
as  such,  was  no  longer  the  object  of  his  life.  Before 
the  Pelagian  controversy  began,  he  was  seeking  for 
some  dogmatic  basis  by  which  to  justify  the  claims  of 
the  church  as  a  mediator  between  God  and  man,  with- 
out whose  intervention  salvation  was  impossible.  In 
so  doing  he  was  laying  the  corner-stone  of  Latin  the- 
ology. When  the  Pelagian  controversy  was  over,  the 
Latin  church  was  for  the  first  time  in  possession  of 
a  theology  of  its  own,  differing  at  every  point  from 
the  earlier  Greek  theology,  starting  from  different 
premises  and  actuated  throughout  by  another  motive.^ 

^  It  is  in  his  famous  treatise  De  Civitate  Deij  and  in  his  anti- 
Pelagian  writings  passim^  that  Augustine's  matured  theological 
eonvictions  are  to  be  found  in  their  complete  form. 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  ORIGINAL  SIN.        157 

The  foundation  of  that  theology  was  the  Augustinian 
dogma  of  original  sin.  That  doctrine  was  alone  ade- 
quate to  explain  the  existence  and  mediatorship  of  the  » 
church,  or  to  justify  its  claim  to  teach  and  to  rule  ' 
with  supreme  authority.  The  dogma  of  original  sin 
was  unknown  to  Greek  theology  as  well  as  an  innova- 
tion also  in  Latin  thought,  though  it  had  been  vaguely 
broached  by  Tertullian  and  Cyprian,  and  intimations 
looking  toward  it  are  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of 
Ambrose.  According  to  this  dogma,  humanity  is  ab- 
solutely separated  from  God  in  consequence  of  Adam's 
sin.  In  the  guilt  of  that  sin  the  whole  human  race  is 
implicated,  and  has  therefore  fallen  imder  the  wrath 
and  condemnation  of  God,  —  a  condemnation  which 
dooms  the  race,  as  a  whole  and  as  individuals,  to 
everlasting  woe.  So  deeply  is  Augustine  interested 
in_establishing  this  position,  that  the  redemption  of 
the  world  by  Christ  inevitably  assumes  a  subordinate 
place,  and  is  practically  denied.  Adam  and  not  Christ 
becomes  the  normal  man,  the  type  and  representative, 
the  federal  head  of  the  race.  There  is  a  solidarity  of 
mankind^  in  sin  and  guilt,  but  not  in  redemption,  — a 
solidarity  in  Adam,  not  in  Christ.  There  stands,  as  it  I 
were,  at  the  opening  of  the  drama  of  human  history  a 
quasi-supernatural  being,  whose  rebellion  involves  the 
whole  human  family  in  destruction.  Endowed  with  a 
supernatural  gift,  —  the  image  of  God  in  his  constitu- 
tion which  united  him  closely  with  his  maker,  —  he  1 
lost  it  for  himself  and  his  descendants  by  one  sinful 
act,^nd_thus  cut  off  hunianJtxJEQ^^  ^^ly  rplRtiouship 
\<fith  God.^  In  This  catastrophe,  the  reason,  the  con-  [ 
science^'the  will  of  man  suffered  alike;  the  traces  of 
the  divine  image  in  human  nature  were  destroyed. 
How  then  is  the  sundered  relationship  to  be   re- 


158  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

stored?  What  is  redemption,  and  how  is  it  to  be 
applied  ?  The  place  of  Christ  in  Augustine's  scheme 
is  not  a  prominent  one,  for  humanity  has  not  been  re- 
deemed. Augustine  continues  to  speak  of  Christ,  it  is 
true,  in  the  conventional  way,  but  he  no  longer  finds 
in  His  work  any  bond  which  unites  God  with  human- 
ity. The  incarnation  has  become  a  mystery,  —  God 
chose  to  accomplish  human  salvation  in  this  way,  but 
so  far  as  we  can  see  He  might  have  adopted  some 
other  method.  It  almost  seems  as  though,  if  Christ 
were  left  out  altogether,  the  scheme  of  Augustine 
would  still  maintain  its  consistency  as  a  whole  and 
retain  its  value  as  a  working  system.  The  reasons 
which  led  Augustine  to  deny  the  universality  of  re- 
demption were  the  same  as  had  influenced  Gnostics 
and  Manichgeans,  —  he  was  oppressed  by  the  sense  of 
sin  in  himself,  the  knowledge  of  it  in  others,  the  ap- 
palling extent  and  depth  of  human  wickedness  ;  these 
things  to  the  mind  of  a  practical  Roman  made  it 
meaningless  to  think  or  act  as  if  humanity  were  re- 
deemed to  God.  But  when  the  Christian  principle  of 
redemption  had  been  abandoned,  there  was  only  one 
other  alternative,  and  that  was  to  follow  still  further 
in  Gnostic  __and^Manichsean  footsteps,  —  to  adopt  the 
principle  of  an  individual  election  by  which  some  souls 
were  saved  out  of  the  great  mass  doomed  to  destruc- 
tion. The  bond  of  union  between  this  world  and  God 
is  the  divine  will,  —  a  will  not  grounded  in  righteous- 
ness or  love,  into  whose  mysterious  ways  it  is  vain  for 
man  to  inquire,  the  justice  of  which  it  is  presumptuous 
for  him  to  discuss.  That  will  whose  arbitrary  deter- 
minations constitute  right,  chooses  some  to  salvation 
and  leaves  the  rest  to  follow  out  the  way  to  endless 
misery.     In  one  respect  the  Augustinian  idea  of  pre- 


PREDESTINATION,  159 

destination  diverged  from  the  Gnostic  and  approxi- 
mated the  later  Mohammedan  conception,  —  it  is  a 
predestination  which  acts  here  and  there  in  an  arbi- 
trary way  without  reference  to  human  efforts  or  attain- 
ments. The  clearest  manifestation  of  the  divine  will  in 
the  world,  which  is  opehlBothe  gaze  of  all,  is  the  Catho- 

_lie_church,  the  one  divinely  appointed  channel  through 
which  God  has  decreed  that  the  elect  axe.  to  be  saved. 
Predestination  is  to  a  process  within  the  church.  For 
although  Augustine  believed  that  outside  of  the 
church  none  could  be  saved,  he  by   no   means  held 

.   that  all  within  the  church  would  escape  damnation.  . 
Although  all  are  to  be  compelled  to  enter  the  church,  ' 
this  is  only  in  order  that  the  elect  among  them  who 
are  known  only  to  God  may  obtain  the  grace  to  be 
found  alone  in  the  church,  by  which  they  make  their 
election  sure. 

According  to  Augustine,  sinJiaaLits  seat  jn  the  will.  ^ 
The  effect  of  original  sin  has  been  to  so  enfeeble  or 
corrupt  the  will,  that  it  has  become  powerless  in  every 
man  to  turn  away  from  evil.  The  will  is  so  firmly  set 
toward  evil,  that  only  a  divine  creative  act  can  renew 
it  again  after  its  original  character.  In  this  respect 
each  man  is  isolated,  and  no  man  can  help  his  brother ; 
exhortations  and  example  go  for  nothing  ;  the  enlight- 
enment of  the  reason  is  in  vain,  —  only  God  Himself 
acting  i:g3onJJifi.  will  from  without,  by  His  omnipotent 
power,  can  break  down  its  opposition  to  what  is  good, 
and  recreate  it  after  the  divine  image  which  has  been 
ruined  in  Adam's  fall.  This  creative  act  takes  place  ^ 
in  baptism.  In  this  rite,  the  image  of  God  is  restored, 
and  the  soul  becomes  possessed  again  of  that  super- 
natural gift  which  united  man  originally  to  his  Creator.  | 
Hence,  in  the  system  of  Augustine,  baptism  acquired '| 


160  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

a  dogmatic  significance  which  it  had  not  hitherto  pos- 
sessed, great  as  was  the  importance  which  had  always 
attached  to  it.  For  unless  the  divine  image  is  re- 
placed, it  is  impossible,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  that 
any  one  should  be  saved.  Man,  without  baptism,  is 
only  a  highly  gifted  animal,  lacking  the  one  essential 
quality  which  makes  him  capable  of  salvation,  —  of  the 
divine  communion  here,  and  of  the  divine  presence 
Y  hereafter.  Hence,  for  heathens  and  for  unbaptized 
children,  there  is  no  hope  in  the  world  to  come  of  ever 
seeing  God.  Their  punishment  may  be  a  thing  of  de- 
igrees,  for  those  who  have  not  actually  sinned  it  may 
jhardly  be  punishment  at  all,  —  Augustine  was  willing 
to  be  lenient  where  his  theory  did  not  suffer,  —  but  it 
will  be  endless,  and  the  essence  of  their  loss  consists 
in  this,  that  they  can  never  to  all  eternity  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  God,  in  which  consists  supernatural  bless- 
edness. The  result  of  this  belief  was  to  make  general 
the  practice  of  infant  baptism,  which  was  not  before 
i    Augustine's  time  the  universal  custom.^ 

r-  Augustine's  doctrine  concerning  original  sin  and  its 
remission  by  baptism,  as  well  as  his  views  upon  pre- 
destination, were  regarded  at  the  time  as  innovations, 
as  well  as  a  dangerous  disturbance  of  the  faith  of  the 
church.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  bishops  of  Rome 
were  in  sympathy  with  Augustine's  policy ;  but  in  the 
course  of   the   controversy   there  was   one  exception 

^  Some  of  the  most  eminent  fathers  of  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries,  though  born  in  Christian  households,  were  not  baptized 
till  they  reached  maturity.  Such  were  Basil,  Gregory  of  Nazi- 
anzus,  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Jerome,  and  also  Augustine  himself. 
Gregory  of  Nazianzus  would  have  still  further  postponed  the 
rite,  had  it  not  been  a  prerequisite  for  ordination.  The  custom 
of  postponing  baptism  continued  in  the  East  for  some  time  after 
infant  baptism  had  become  the  rule  in  the  West. 


OPPOSITION  TO  AUGUSTINE.  161 

among  them  in  the  person  of  Zosimus,  before  whom 
the  case  of  the  Pelagians  was  laid,  and  who  declared 
that  their  confession  of  faith  revealed  no  taint  of  her- 
esy, and  that  the  whole  discussion  arose  from  a  child- 
like love  of  innovation.  Zosimus  may  have  been,  as 
is  generally  thought,  a  Greek,  but  he  could  not  have 
called  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  and  its  remission  by 
baptism,  in  the  case  of  infants,  a  novelty,  if  it  had 
formed  a  part  of  the  Roman  tradition  and  usage.^ 
Theodore,  of  Mopsuestia,  the  greatest  among  Eastern 
theologians  in  the  fifth  century,  charged  Augustine's 
lack  of  insight  into  the  nature  of  the  Christian  faith 
to  his  ignorance  of  the  Scriptures  ;  he  called  his  doc- 
trine of  original  sin  a  novelty  recently  set  forth  ;  he 
reflected  upon  his  lack  of  reverence  and  of  true  fear, 
in  asserting  things  about  God  which  human  justice 
would  condemn,  and  with  which  no  wise  man  could 
agree.  2  But  the  most  remarkable  opposition  to  the 
Augustinian  theology  came  from  the  remoter  West, 
and  was  formulated  by  Vincens  of  Lerins,  in  his  fa- 
mous motto,  by  which  he  sought  at  once  a  principle  of 
Christian  certitude,  as  well  as  a  convenient  test  for 
detecting  the  innovations  of  error  :  "  That  should  be 
held  for  Catholic  truth  which  has  been  believed  every- 
where, always,  and  by  all."  ^     Judged  by  this  stand- 

^  Cf .  Labbe,  Concilia,  torn.  iii.  pp.  401,  403,  for  the  letters  of 
Zosimus  to  the  African  bishops. 

2  Gieseler,  Ec.  Hist.,  i.  339. 

^  Commonitorium  pro  Catholicce  Jidei  antiquitate  et  universitate, 
etc.,  c.  2,  Migne's  Patrolog.,  torn.  50,  p.  640  :  "  In  ipsa  item 
Catholica  Ecclesia  magnopere  curandum  est,  ut  id  teneamus 
quod  ubique,  quod  semper,  quod  ah  omnibus  creditum  sit."  A  par- 
tial translation  of  the  Commonitorium  was  made  by  John  Henry 
Newman,  in  Tracts  far  the  Times,  vol.  i.  p.  592,  where  it  is  in- 
tended to  form  a  companion  for  Tertullian's  Prescription  of  Here- 
11 


Ur--: 


162  THE  LATIN    THEOLOGY. 

ard,  the  teaching  of  Augustine  lacked  each  one  of  the 
three  essential  marks  of  truth.  That  it  was  the  ob- 
ject of  Yincens  to  controvert  the  great  African  father, 
though  he  does  not  mention  him  by  name,  is  generally- 
admitted ;  but  the  latter  part  of  his  "  Commonito- 
rium,"  in  which  he  enforced  the  application  of  his 
principle,  has  been  lost,  and  is  said  to  have  been  stolen 
in  his  lifetime.  The  first  part  has  ever  since  remained 
a  standard  exposition  of  what  is  called  the  "  great 
Catholic  principle."  It  is  one  of  the  curiosities  —  not 
to  say  variations  —  in  the  history  of  Latin  theology, 
that  the  Roman  church  has  accepted  the  principle  of 
Vincens,  and  at  the  same  time  approved  the  theology 
which  that  principle  was  set  forth  to  condemn. 

No  point  more  clearly  illustrates  the  degradation 
which  Christian  theology  underwent  at  the  hands  of 
Augustine  than  his  doctrine  of  grace.  Christ  as  the 
invisible  teacher  of  humanity,  whose  presence  in  the 
world,  in  the  reason  and  conscience  of  man,  is  the 
power  by  which  men  are  delivered  from  sin  and 
brought  into  the  liberty  of  the  children  of  God,  gives 
way  in  the  system  of  Augustine  to  an  impersonal  thing 
or  substance  which  is  known  as  grace.  However  it 
may  be  defined  —  and  Augustine's  use  of  the  word 
varies  —  it  is  grace  that  constitutes  the  beginning, 
V  middle,  and  end  of  the  way  of  salvation.  There  is  pre- 
venient  grace  that  makes  man  ready  to  receive  the 
gospel,  there  is  grace  that  operates  to  renew  the  will, 
grace  that  cooperates  with  the  will  restored,  irresisti- 

tics.  The  notes  attached  by  the  illustrious  translator  have  still  a 
melancholy  interest.  A  valuable  criticism  of  the  "  Quod  ubique," 
etc.,  may  be  found  in  Sir  G.  C.  Lewis's  Authority  in  Matters  of 
Opinion,  c.  iv.  The  history  of  theology,  however,  is  the  best  crit- 
icism upon  this  much  vaunted  test  of  truth. 


AUGUSTINE'S  VIEW  OF  THE  SACRAMENTS.  163 

ble  grace  that  insures  the  final  triumph.  In  one  as- 
pect, this  grace  may  be  defined  as  the  will  of  God  de- 
creeing the  salvation  of  the  elect ;  in  another  aspect, 
it  is  a  quality  or  spiritual  potency  deposited  in  the 
church  or  hierarchy  and  distributed  to  the  people  by 
the  priesthood  in  the  sacraments.  What  is  sometimes 
called  the  sacramental  theology  is  based  upon  the  Au- 
gustinian  notion  of  grace,  —  the  principle  that  man  is 
built  up  in  the  spiritual  life  by  a  subtle  quality  con- 
veyed to  him  from  without  through  material  agencies, 
rather  than  by  evoking  the  divine  that  is  within.  For 
such  a  system  Augustine  laid  the  foundation  upon 
which  the  Latin  church  in  the  Middle  Ages  reared  the 
elaborated  structure.^     Even  in  Augustine's  time,  it 

1  Augustine  laid  the  dogmatic  foundation  of  the  sacramental 
theology  by  his  doctrine  concerning  grace  ;  but  he  did  not  con- 
nect the  doctrine  with  the  sacraments  in  the  same  way  or  to  the 
same  extent  as  was  done  in  the  mediaeval  church.  According  to 
Baur,  his  theory  of  the  nature  of  a  sacrament  implied  some  su- 
pernatural affiliation  between  the  sign  and  the  thing  signified  : 
"  Das  Wesen  des  Sacraments  setzte  er  in  die  Unterscheidung 
eines  doppelten  Elements,  eines  sinnlichen  und  iibersinnlichen, 
welche  beide  sich  nur  wie  Bild  und  Sache  zu  einander  verhalten 
konnen.  Das  Yermittelnde  dieser  Beziehung  ist  das  Wort." 
Dogmengeschichte,  §  49.  But  the  predominance  of  the  idea  of 
election  in  his  system  forced  Augustine  to  modify  what  might 
otherwise  have  been  a  tendency  to  the  lowest  form  of  sacramen- 
talism.  Cf.  Epist.  (98)  ad  Bonifacium  for  the  famous  passage  in 
which  he  seems  to  endeavor  to  speak  plainly,  but  of  which  the 
apparent  meaning  can  of  course  be  disputed.  Augustine  cer- 
tainly did  not  teach  that  all  were  regenerated  in  baptism,  but 
only  the  elect  ;  in  the  Lord's  Supper  also,  only  the  elect,  in  virtue 
of  their  faith,  participated  in  the  body  and  the  blood  of  Christ, 
while  to  all  others  it  was  but  an  empty  sign.  Such  substantially 
was  the  teaching  of  Calvin.  The  leaders  of  the  Tractarian  move-  y 
ment  in  the  Church  of  England  were  unconsciously  asserting  the 
mediaeval  view  of  the  sacraments  and  not  the  Augustinian.     In- 


164  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY. 

was  felt  to  be  desirable  that  the  number  of  the  chan* 
nels  or  avenues  of  grace  should  be  increased  beyond 
the  original  two  which  Christ  had  appointed ;  and  had 
the  sacraments  expanded  until  they  included  every 
agency  for  good  with  which  human  life  abounds,  the 
evil  in  the  system  would  have  been  in  some  measure 
neutralized.  But  here  also,  as  in  the  sphere  of  doc- 
trine, the  ecclesiastical  idea  was  the  controlling  influ- 
ence, and  the  sacraments  were  ultimately  limited  to 
those  rites  which  bound  men  in  absolute  dependence 
upon  the  church  for  salvation. ^ 

The  effect  of  Augustine's  views  concerning  the  na- 
ture and  consequences  of  original  sin  was  to  create  a 
new  dogmatic  basis  for  the  relationship  between  God 
and  humanity,  for  the  church,  the  priesthood,  and  the 
sacraments.  The  effect  of  these  views  is  further  seen 
in  all  that  relates  to  human  destiny  in  a  future  world. 
The  doctrine  of  endless  punishment  assumed  in  the 
writings  of  Augustine  a  prominence  and  rigidity  which 
had  no  parallel  in  the  earlier  history  of  theology, 
which  had  no  warrant  in  the  New  Testament,  and 
which  savors  of  the  teaching  of  Mohammed  more  than 
of  Christ.  Hitherto  even  in  the  West,  it  had  been  an 
open  question  whether  the  punishment  hereafter  of  sin 

deed  it  was  the  recognition  by  the  Privy  Council  of  the  Augus- 
tinian  view  of  baptism,  as  held  by  Mr.  Gorham,  that  occasioned 
the  stampede  to  the  Church  of  Rome  in  1852. 

^  The  development  of  the  sacraments  in  the  Greek  church  fol- 
lowed in  appearance  somewhat  the  same  course  as  in  the  Latin 
church,  but  was  chiefly  influenced  by  the  teaching  of  the  pseudo- 
Dionysius  and  not  by  the  Augustinian  idea  of  grace.  The  sacra- 
ments have  never  been  to  the  Greek  church  quite  what  they  are 
to  the  Latin,  because  they  are  viewed  in  their  connection  with 
the  living  and  ever  present  Christ,  rather  than  as  channels 
through  which  the  priesthood  distribute  an  impersonal  grace. 


ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT.  165 

unrepented  of  and  not  forsaken  was  to  be  endless. 
Augustine  has  left  on  record  the  fact  that  some,  very 
many  indeed,^  still  fell  back  upon  the  mercy  and  love 
of  God  as  a  ground  of  hope  for  the  ultimate  restora- 
tion of  humanity.  Tertullian  and  Cyprian,  as  we  have 
seen,  had  used  harsh  language  in  depicting  the  endless 
punishment  of  sin  hereafter,  but  they  may  be  said  to 
have  been  speaking  rhetorically  and  under  the  influ- 
ence of  excited  emotion  —  under  the  conviction  that 
only  such  a  motive  was  adequate  to  move  their  cruel 
and  hardened  persecutors.  But  no  such  possible  exten- 
uation can  be  pleaded  for  Augustine.  He  is  the  first 
writer  to  undertake  a  long  and  elaborate  defense  of 
the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment  and  to  wage  a  po- 
lemic against  its  impugners.  In  the  21st  book  of  his 
"  City  of  God  "  he  seeks  to  establish  it  by  Scripture, 
by  analogy,  by  dialectic,  by  its  inner  necessary  rela- 
tionship with  the  scheme  of  God's  government  of  the 
world.  He  rallies  the  "tender  hearted  Christians," 
as  he  calls  them,  who  cannot  accept  it.  The  spirit  in 
which  he  conducts  his  argument  against  the  various 
classes  of  opponents  whom  he  mentions,  reveals  how 
to  his  mind  the  doctrine  entered  as  a  necessary  factor 
into  the  divine  government,  and  was  indispensable 
to  the  existence  and  work  of  the  church  on  earth, 
which  had  been  invested  with  the  divine  vicegerency. 

1  "  Frustra  nonuUi,  immo  quam  plurimi,  seternam  damnatorum 
poenam  et  cruciatus  sine  intermissione  perpetuos  humano  niise- 
rentur  affectu  atque  ita  f  uturum  esse  non  creduiit."  Enchirid.  ad 
Laurentium,  c.  cxii.  "  The  belief,"  says  Gieseler,  "  in  the  inaliena- 
ble capability  of  improvement  in  all  rational  beings  and  the  lim- 
ited duration  of  future  punishment  was  so  general  even  in  the 
West  and  among  the  opponents  of  Origen,  that  even  if  it  may 
not  be  said  to  have  arisen  without  the  influence  of  Origen's 
school,  it  had  become  entirely  independent  of  his  system."— £^c- 
des.  Hist.,  i.  321,  Am.  ed. 


166  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY, 

I  The  allusions  in  Augustine's  writings  to  the  purify- 
'  ing  fires  which  await  the  elect  in  another  world/  have 
been  sometimes  regarded  as  hardly  sufficient  to  war- 
rant the  mediaeval  doctrine  of  purgatory  which  was 
deduced  from  them.  But  Augustine  is  the  father  of 
the  system,  and  its  later  modifications  do  not  affect 
the  substratum  of  the  doctrine  as  announced  by  him. 
For  if  here  on  earth  humanity  is  absolutely  separated 
from  God  by  Adam's  fall,  and  the  incarnation  reveals 
no  essential  kinship  between  them,  but  is  a  device  to 
overcome  human  sinfulness,  and  otherwise  would  not 
have  been  necessary,'''  why  should  the  mere  incident  of 
death  bring  man  at  once  into  the  presence  of  God  and 
the  enjoyment  of  his  felicity.  The  causes  which  have 
operated  here  to  maintain  humanity  in  its  isolation, 
may  and  even  must  continue  in  force  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent hereafter.  One  can  see  that  the  dogmatic  basis 
of  thought  and  sentiment  upon  which  the  church  was 
resting  required,  so  to  speak,  that  the  church's  influ- 
ence and  control  should  follow  men  into  another  world, 
before  they  were  made  quite  ready  to  endure  the  be- 
atific vision.  Hence  Augustine's  hint,  that  the  elect 
might  remain  for  an  indefinite  period  after  death 
under  the  same  penal  system  which  held  during  life, 
was  no  mere  casual  remark,  but  rather  an  inevitable 
logical  deduction. 
^  The  doctrine  of  purgatory  followed  naturally  an- 
other belief  which  had  prevailed  chiefly  in  the  Latin 
church,  known  as  the  doctrine  of  the  intermediate 
state.  This  latter  doctrine  in  its  turn  was  dependent 
on  those  opinions  concerning  the  resurrection  of  the 
body  which  had  been  advocated  so  vigorously  by  Ter- 

*  Enchirid.,  c.  69,  and  De  Civitate  Dd,  xx.  c.  25. 
2  Enchirid.,  cc.  33  and  48. 


ORIGIN  OF  PURGATORY.  167 

tullian,  and  which  in  the  main  Augustine  v,  d6pepted. 
When  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  was  underfitood, 
as  by  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  others,  to  be  an  im- 
mediate standing  up  again  in  greater  fullness  of  life, 
there  could  be  no  such  conception  entertained  as  that 
of  an  intermediate  state ;  life  here  and  hereafter  was 
a  regular  and  orderly  progression  under  the  guidance 
everywhere  of  the  divine  in-dwelling  Word.  But  the 
belief  in  the  resurrection  as  impl^nng  a  restoration  of 
the  same  identical  body  which  had  been  laid  in  the 
grave,  to  which  body  all  the  particles  which  had  com- 
posed it  were  essential,  postponed  the  day  when  the 
dead  should  rise  to  the  distant  future.  In  the  mean 
time  the  great  host  of  the  departed  remained  in  a  wait- 
ing attitude  for  the  ultimate  consummation.  The  idea, 
therefore,  of  a  purgatory  was,  from  such  a  point  of 
view,  an  effort  to  occupy  this  waiting  period  with  some 
definite  purpose,  and  in  some  intimate  way  connect  it 
with  the  life  and  work  of  the  church  on  earth.  In 
some  respects,  the  belief  in  purgatory  was  an  advance 
on  the  views  of  the  future  life  which  had  prevailed 
among  Jews  and  heathens,  for  it  involved  a  moral 
principle  and  aim  ;  and  further,  the  imprisonment  was 
not  a  final  one,  —  at  some  time  the  doors  were  to  be 
opened  and  souls  to  be  received  into  their  everlasting 
home.  But  both  the  doctrine  of  purgatory  and  that ' 
of  the  intermediate  state  have  a  close  analogy  with 
pre-Christian  views,  whether  Jewish  or  heathen,  and 
bear  \vitness  to  a  lower  continuity  between  Christian- 
ity and  the  systems  it  supplanted.  Apart  from  the  ele- 
ment of  hope  which  inheres  in  the  Christian  belief,  the 
future  life,  whether  of  the  intermediate  state  or  pur- 
gatory, recalls  again  the  Jewish  Sheol  and  the  world 
of  the  dead  in  Homer  or  in  Virgil,  —  a  place  where 


168  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY, 

souls  exist  in  a  disembodied  condition  wanting  the 
richness  and  attractiveness  of  terrestrial  life.  To  their 
brethren  on  earth  their  condition  seemed  one  appeal- 
ing to  sympathy  and  pity.  Augustine  thought  they 
might  be  helped  by  the  sacraments  and  by  the  alms 
of  their  friends  on  earth.  Certainly,  with  such  a  be- 
lief, it  was  not  strange  that  men  should  pray  for  their 
dead ;  it  would  have  been  inhuman  for  them  not  to  do 
so.  But  "prayers  for  the  dead,"  as  they  were  now 
offered,  differed  widely  in  spirit  from  that  devout  re- 
membrance and  giving  of  thanks  for  the  departed 
which  had  characterized  the  higher  and  purer  faith  of 
the  early  church.  Then  it  was  believed  that  they  were 
safe  in  the  bosom  of  God,  in  joy  and  felicity ;  in  the 
communion  of  Christ  they  had  gone  upwards  to  be 
with  Him ;  and  even  the  lower  Hades,  since  Christ  had 
penetrated  its  gloomy  recesses,  could  no  longer  hold 
its  own,  but  yielded  up  its  inmates  to  the  superior 
world  of  spiritual  light  and  life.  In  the  change  of  be- 
lief on  this  subject  alone  is  sufficiently  indicated  the 
profound  transformation  which  the  Christian  faith  had 
undergone  in  Latin  theology.  ^ 

In  this  brief  sketch  of  Augustine's  theology,  his 
life  has  been  alluded  to  only  so  far  as  it  was  connected 
with  that  system  of  opinions  which  he  matured  in 
his  later  years.  In  no  ancient  writer,  however,  does 
Christian  experience  seem  to  stand  in  such  sharp  con- 

^  It  has  been  shown  by  De  Rossi  that  none  of  the  earlier  ex- 
pressions of  confidence  and  hope,  which  are  common  among  the 
few  epitaphs  of  the  second  and  third  centuries,  are  to  be  found 
among  the  fifteen  hundred  inscriptions  which  belong  to  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries.  In  their  place  appear  the  cold  convention- 
alities of  the  obituary  record,  and  utterances  sometimes  more 
pagan  than  Christian.  Cf.  Northcote,  Christian  Epigraphy^  pp. 
74-76. 


ESTIMATE   OF  AUGUSTINE'S   WORK.      169 

flict  with  formal  opinion.  When  he  writes  from  the 
heart,  he  still  speaks  to  the  Christian  world  to-day,  as 
he  has  spoken  through  the  ages,  with  an  appeal  in 
his  tone  which  we  are  powerless  to  resist,  with  an  ex- 
quisite charm  in  his  language  which  we  cannot  forget. 
He  lived  in  an  age  of  transition,  when  the  civilized 
world  was  passing  in  the  West  into  a  state  of  barbar- 
ism, and  in  connection  with  that  fact  his  work  as  a 
theologian  should  always  be  remembered.  He  made 
the  transition  possible  from  the  Koman  empire  of  his 
day  to  the  papal  empire  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
history  of  nearly  a  thousand  years  is  summed  up  in 
his  experience ;  but  it  was,  on  the  whole,  a  history 
which  the  world  does  not  care  to  see  repeated,  valu- 
able as  may  be  the  results  which  it  has  contributed  to 
secure  to  Christian  civilization.  It  may  have  been 
necessary  that  the  world  should  go  back  again  to  the 
"  beggarly  elements  "  from  which  it  seemed  to  have 
escaped ;  but  if  so,  it  was  because  new  races  had  come 
forward  to  carry  on  the  line  of  human  progress,  who, 
before  they  could  appreciate  the  Christian  revelation, 
must  undergo  the  preparatory  training  of  tutors  and 
school-masters,  —  who  must  pass  under  the  yoke  of  the 
law  before  they  were  ready  for  the  spirit  of  life  and 
liberty.  The  work  of  Augustine  ministered  to  this 
end.  All  through  the  Middle  Ages  his  writings  were 
the  supreme  authority  in  the  study  of  theology.  In 
one  respect  his  books  served  a  larger  purpose  than  the 
aim  of  their  great  author,  for  they  contained  the  germs 
of  more  than  one  system  of  theology,  and  from  him 
the  scholastic  theologians,  who  knew  no  distinction 
between  his  earlier  and  his  later  writings,  gained 
glimpses  of  a  higher  and  vaster  system  of  Christian 
thought  than  that  which  came  down  in  tradition  with 


170  THE  LATIN   THEOLOGY, 

the  sanction  of  his  name,  —  a  system  which  they  were 
debarred  by  their  ignorance  of  the  Greek  language 
from  studying  in  its  original  sources.  He  has  been 
enumerated  among  the  four  great  doctors  of  the  Latin 
church ;  but  he  stands  facile  princeps  among  them. 
Ambrose  was  a  distinguished  administrator  and  popu- 
lar orator ;  Jerome  gave  to  the  church  its  translation 
of  the  Scriptures  ;  Gregory  the  Great  illustrated,  in  a 
brilliant  way,  what  service  a  pope  might  render  to 
Christendom.  But  Augustine  was  great  in  that  he 
may  be  said  to  have  made  possible  the  career  of  the 
Latin  church.  For  a  thousand  years  those  who  came 
after  him  did  little  more  than  reaffirm  his  teaching, 
and  so  deep  is  the  hold  which  his  long  supremacy  has 
left  upon  the  church,  that  his  opinions  have  become 
identified  with  the  divine  revelation,  and  are  all  that 
the  majority  of  the  Christian  world  yet  know  of  the 
religion  of  Christ. 

The  question  is  sometimes  asked  why  Mohammed- 
anism, which  swept  over  the  East,  should  have  halted 
at  the  gates  of  Rome,  and  never  have  succeeded  in 
gaining  anything  but  a  precarious  foothold  in  Western 
Europe.  The  answer  to  the  question  must  take  into 
consideration  the  work  of  Augustine.  His  doctrine 
of  the  church  with  which  he  inspired  Western  Chris- 
tendom proved  the  impregnable  rock  to  the  irresist- 
ible wave.  The  belief  of  Islam  in  a  theocracy  of 
which  the  prophet  and  his  successors  were  the  divinely 
appointed  rulers,  —  a  theocracy  outside  of  which  all 
were  infidels  and  beyond  the  pale  of  salvation,  —  was 
met  by  the  Latin  church  with  a  similar  belief  in  a 
theocracy  in  which  Peter  and  his  successors  were  the 
vicars  of  Christ.  It  may  be  regarded  as  one  claim  of 
the  papacy  to  gratitude  that  it  stood  for  a  principle 


AUGUSTINE  AND  MOHAMMED,  171 

about  which  the  crude  sentiment  of  barbarous  ages 
could  rally,  and  thus  prevent  the  surrender  of  the 
West  to  the  religion  of  Mohammed.  But  it  must 
also  be  remembered  that  so  great  a  result  was  ob- 
tained by  a  corresponding  sacrifice,  and  that  Chris- 
tianity approximated  in  its  inmost  principle  to  Islam. 
"VYe  have  traced  the  process  of  deterioration  in  the 
Latin  church,  and  more  particularly  in  the  theology 
of  Augustine.  In  his  idea  of  God  as  absolute  and 
arbitrary  will  in  which  consists  the  only  ground  of 
right ;  in  the  depreciation  of  Christ,  so  that  deism  is 
the  tacit  assumption  of  the  church  on  which  its  insti- 
tutions rest ;  in  his  doctrine  of  election  which  differs 
in  no  essential  particulars  from  the  Mohammedan 
predestination  ;  in  his  view  of  grace  which  becomes 
an  act  of  the  divine  condescension,  designed  to  ex- 
hibit chiefly  the  power  and  glory  of  God,  and  only 
incidentally  considering  the  weKare  of  man  ;  ^  in  the 

1  "  Der  BegrifP  der  Guade  bei  Aug.  ist  noch  nicht  bestimmt  als 
Liebe  Gottes  fixirt;  sie  ist  vielmehr  so  gefasst,  dass  die  Creatur 
ihr  als  Mittel  dient,  sich  zu  offenbaren.  Es  ist  in  dieser  Vorstel- 
lung,  dass  ich  so  sage,  der  gottliche  Egoismus  noch  nicht  iiber- 
wunden  ;  Gott  hat  noch  einen  audem  Zweck,  wenn  er  den  Men- 
schen  inspirirt,  als  den  Menschen  selbst  zu  vollenden;  er  inspirirt 
ihn  nur,  um  sich  durch  ihn."  —  A.  Dorner,  Augustinus.  Sein 
theologisches  System,  und  seine  religionsphUosophische  Anschauungf 

"  Mohammed  deemed  it  a  monstrous  absurdity  to  suppose  that 
the  attributes  of  man  gave  him  any  peculiar  claims  on  the  con- 
sideration of  God.  But  it  was  worse  than  an  absurdity;  it  was 
blasphemy  to  suppose  that  man  could  claim  any  spiritual  kinship 
with  his  Creator,  that  any  particle  of  the  divine  essence  had 
breathed  into  him."  ..."  God  is  called  the  Merciful  and  the 
Compassionate,  not  because  love  is  of  the  essence  of  His  nature, 
but  because,  though  all-powerful.  He  forbears  to  use  His  might 
for  man's  destruction." — Islam  Under  the  Arab,hjR.  D.  Osborn, 
quoted  in  Clarke's  Ten  Great  Religions^  ii.  379. 


172  THE  LATIN  THEOLOGY, 

defiance  of  the  reason  and  the  subjugation  of  man 
under  the  divine  omnipotence,  —  in  such  features  as 
these  do  the  Augustinian  theology  and  the  faith  of 
Islam  betray  a  fatal  resemblance.  Did  we  look  to 
formal  theology  alone,  the  history  of  the  church  would 
remain  inexplicable.  But  Christendom  has  never  at 
any  time  quite  lost  its  original  birthright.  Even  in 
its  darkest  days  and  its  lowest  estate,  the  fact  has 
never  been  forgotten  that  God  had  once  visited  the 
world  in  human  form,  that  divine  love  had  been  mani- 
fested in  the  sacrifice  upon  Calvary.  In  that  con- 
viction, however  much  obscured  or  inadequately  ex- 
pressed, lay  the  difference  between  Christianity  and 
Islam,  and  out  of  it  has  grown  whatever  is  highest 
and  most  enduring  in  Christian  civilization.  The 
new  world  that  was  growing  up  in  Western  Europe 
had  been  taught,  and  believed  sincerely,  that  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  was  the  vicar  of  the  absent  Christ. 
So  long  as  that  belief  prevailed,  the  papacy  was  sup- 
ported by  the  sentiment  of  Western  Christendom. 
When  that  belief  died  out,  a  new  era  in  the  world's 
history  began. 


THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

Itaqae  lex  paedagogas  noster  fuit  in  Christo.— Gal.  iii.  24. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


A.  D. 

467-611.   Clovis,  King  of  the  Franks. 

600.  [c]    Pseudo-Dionysius. 

690-604.   Gregory  the  Great,  Pope. 

680-755.   Boniface,  the  Apostle  of  Germany. 

786-818.   The  Adoptionist  Controversy. 

787.   Seventh  General  Council  approves  image-worship. 

800.   Coronation  of  Charlemagne. 

809.   Acceptance  of  the  Filioque. 

816-840.   Agobard,  Archbishop  of  Lyons. 

820-839.    Claudius,  Bishop  of  Turin. 

831.   Radbertus  teaches  transubstantiation. 

840.  [c]    Origin  of  the  Forged-Decretals. 

847-868.    Controversy  about  predestination. 

850.  [c]     John  Scotus  Erigena. 

858-867.   Nicholas  I.,  Pope. 

1000.   Expectation  of  the  end  of  the  world. 

1033-1109.    Anselmof  Canterbury. 

1073-1085.   Gregory  VII.  (Hildebrand),  Pope. 

1079-1142.   Abelard. 

1091-1153.   Bernard  of  Clairvaux. 

1096-1291.   Period  of  the  Crusades. 

1159-1164.   Peter  the  Lombard,  Bishop  of  Paris. 

1170-1221.   Dominic,  Founder  of  the  Dominican  order 

1182-1226.    Francis  d'Assisi. 

1198-1216.   Innocent  the  Great,  Pope. 

1209-1229.   Crusade  against  the  Albigenses. 

1215.   Twelfth  General  Council  of  the  Latins. 

1227-1274.   Thomas  Aquinas. 

1232.   Establishment  of  the  Inquisition. 

1266-1321.   Dante  Alighieri. 

1265-1308.   Duns  Scotus. 

1294-1303.  Boniface  VIII.,  Pope. 


THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MDDDLE  AGES. 


It  has  been  the  object  of  the  preceding  lectures  to 
trace  the  characteristics  of  two  distinct  theologies. 
There  were  other  theological  movements  in  the  early- 
ages  of  the  church,  but  they  were  relatively  unimpor- 
tant ;  the  Jewish  interpretation  of  Christianity,  which 
may  be  seen  in  the  Nazaritic  and  Ebionitic  sects,  had 
no  enduring  existence,  and  soon  disappeared ;  Arian- 
ism,  which  had  a  kinship  with  the  Hebrew  or  deistic 
phases  of  Christian  thought,  also  disappeared,  leaving 
no  organized  results  as  a  monument  of  its  influence. 
It  was  quite  otherwise  with  what  may  be  called  the 
Greek  and  Latin  theologies :  they  have  been  perpet- 
uated in  their  essential  characteristics  in  the  two 
great  divisions  of  Christendom  known  to-day  as  the 
Greek,  or  Holy  Orthodox  Church  of  the  East;  and 
the  Latin,  or  Koman  Catholic  Church  of  the  West. 
Before  considering  the  mediaeval  development  of  Latin 
theological  thought,  which  is  the  subject  of  the  present 
lecture,  let  us  review  in  a  brief  summary  the  differ- 
ences on  aU  essential  points  of  the  Greek  and  Latin 
theologies.^ 

^  The  general  accuracy  of  this  summary  of  the  two  theologies 
may  be  verified  by  consulting  any  of  the  doctrine  histories,  such 
as  Neander,  Hagenbach,  or  Baur.  The  Greek  theology,  it  should 
be  remembered,  is  distinct  from  the  oriental  tendency  which 
prevailed  in  Asia  Minor  and  elsewhere.     Having  been  held  in 


176       THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

The  Greek  theology  was  based  upon  that  tradition 
or  interpretation  of  the  life  and  teaching  of  Christ 
which  at  a  very  early  date  had  found  its  highest  ex- 
pression in  the  Fourth  Gospel ;  while  the  Latin  theol- 
ogy followed  another  tradition  preserved  by  what  are 
called  the  synoptical  writers  in  the  first  three  gospels. 
The  fundamental  principle  of  Greek  theologj^,  under- 
lying every  position  which  it  assumed,  was  the  doctrine 
I  of  the  divine  immanence,  —  the  presence  of  God  in 
\  nature,  in  humanity,  in  the  process  of  human  history ; 
in  Latin  thought  may  be  everywhere  discerned  the 
working  of  another  principle,  sometimes  known  as 
\  Deism,  according  to  which  God  is  conceived  as  apart 
from  the  world,  localized  at  a  vast  distance  in  the  in- 
finitude of  space.  By  Greek  thinkers  the  incarnation 
was  regarded  as  the  completion  and  the  crown  of  a 
spiritual  process  in  the  history  of  man,  dating  from 
the  creation ;  and  by  Latin  writers  as  the  remedy  for 
a  catastrophe,  by  which  humanity  had  been  severed 
from  its  affiliation  with  God.  With  the  Greek,  the 
emphasis  was  laid  on  the  spiritual  or  essential  Christ, 
who  had  always  been  present  in  human  souls,  who  had 
become  man  in  order  that  He  might  manifest  the  full- 
ness of  the  Godhead  bodily ;  with  the  Latin,  the  ten- 
dency was  to  magnify  exclusively  the  historical  Christ, 
who  had  come  at  a  moment  in  time  and  then  departed, 
leaving  the  world  bereaved  of  His  presence.     Revela- 

check  for  a  time  by  Greek  influence,  its  distinctive  principle  be- 
came more  prominent  after  the  age  of  Athanasius,  when  Greek 
theology  entered  upon  the  stage  of  decline.  The  oriental  ten- 
dency showed  itself  more  particularly  in  the  doctrine  of  the  sacra- 
ments, as  in  the  case  of  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  and  even  of  Gregory 
of  Nyssa,  who  represent  in  this  respect  the  thought  of  Ignatius 
and  Irenaeus.  A  resume  of  patristic  teaching  on  the  sacraments 
may  be  found  in  Norris,  Rudiments  of  Theology. 


SUMMARY  OF   THE   TWO   THEOLOGIES.     177 

tion,  according  to  Greek  theology,  was  a  continuous 
process,  —  a  law  of  the  spiritual  creation,  by  which 
God  was  forever  revealing  Himself  in  and  through  the 
human  reason ;  and  reason  itself  was  but  the  e^ddence 
in  man  of  an  immanent  divine  activity,  of  the  light 
that  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world. 
While  the  revelation  was  continuous  and  in  its  scope 
included  the  whole  discipline  of  life,  there  were  great 
revealing  epochs,  such  as  the  age  of  Hebrew  prophets 
or  Greek  philosophers,  and  the  work  of  these  in  turn 
was  but  fragmentary  and  incomplete  compared  with 
the  life  of  Him  who  was  God  manifest  in  the  flesh, — 
the  incarnation  of  that  divine  reason  which  abides 
etemalTy  in  God.  The  tendency  of  Latin  theology 
was  to  regard  the  reason  as  untrustworthy  and  dan- 
gerous; revelation  was  viewed  as  the  definite  and 
final  communication  of  a  message,  a  "  deposit "  in  a 
book  or  rule  of  faith,  to  be  guaranteed  by  tradition, 
or  handed  down  as  an  heirloom  from  age  to  age. 

It  followed  as  a  necessary  sequence  from  the  first 
principle  of  Greek  theology,  —  the  doctrine  of  the  di- 
vine immanence,  —  that  man  should  be  viewed  as 
having  a  constitutional  kinship  with  Deity ;  by  the 
image  of  God  in  man  was  understood  an  inalienable 
heritage,  a  spiritual  or  ethical  birthright,  which  could 
not  be  forfeited.  Deity  and  humanity  were  not  alien 
the  one  to  the  other,  and  it  was  their  constitutional  re- 
lationship which  made  the  incarnation  not  only  possi- 
ble but  a  necessary  factor  in  the  process  of  redemp- 
tion. An  opposite  tendency  was  manifested  in  Latin 
thought ;  the  tie  which  binds  humanity  to  God  was 
regarded  as  having  been  severed  by  Adam's  fall.' 
Only  that  part  of  humanity  in  whom  the  lost  image  of 
the  Creator  had  been  restored  by  a  supernatural  crear 

12 


178       THEOLOGY  IN   THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

tive  act  could  therefore  be  the  recipients  of  redemp- 
tion. With  such  a  view  of  human  nature  the  incar- 
nation became  a  difficulty  to  the  reason  ;  and  it  is  not 
surprising  to  find  the  mediaeval  theology  developing  a 
skepticism  as  to  whether  the  incarnation  was  necessary, 
or  if  God  might  not  have  saved  men  in  some  other 
way.  The  Greeks  held  to  the  organic  unity  of  man- 
kind in  Christ ;  the  Latins  recognized  the  principle  of 
solidarity  in  Adam.  With  the  one,  redemption  lay 
in  evoking  and  confirming,  by  a  spiritual  education, 
the  divine  that  is  already  in  man  ;  with  the  other,  it 
consisted  in  an  impartation  of  strength  from  without, 
through  external  channels.  For  the  living  presence 
in  the  soul  of  the  spiritual  Christ,  the  Latins  substi- 
tuted an  inanimate  thing  which  was  designated  in  re- 
ligious nomenclature  as  grace.  The  end  of  Christ's 
religion,  as  viewed  by  the  Greeks,  was  the  realizing  of 
aspirations  after  a  divine  character,  —  the  free  imita- 
tion of  God  ;  as  viewed  by  the  Latins,  it  was  obedience 
to  an  external  law.  Faith,  in  the  Greek  acceptation, 
was  spiritual  vision,  —  the  insight  of  the  soul  into  eter- 
nal realities ;  in  the  Latin,  it  was  primarily  assent  to 
external  authority. 

The  church,  in  its  most  essential  aspect,  was  re- 
garded by  Greek  theologians  as  the  congregation  of 
those  who  consciously  acknowledged  Christ  as  the 
way  of  righteousness  and  of  life  ;  the  office  of  the 
clergy  was  a  representative  one ;  their  authority  came 
from  the  people,  but  they  were  also  inspired  by  the 
Divine  teacher  to  be  the  instructors  and  mouth-piece 
of  those  who  constituted  the  body  of  Christ.  In  the 
Latin  idea  of  the  church,  there  was  a  tendency  from 
the  first  to  regard  it  as  a  divinely  endowed,  mysterious 
entity,  distinct  from  the  congregation,  existing  as  a 


SUMMARY  OF  THE   TWO  THEOLOGIES.      179 

mediator  between  it  and  God.  The  church  was  prac- 
tically identified  with  the  hierarcliical  order,  and  the 
clergy  held  their  office  and  prerogatives  through  a 
sanction  away  and  apart  from  the  people,  —  the  dele- 
gates of  a  remote  sovereign  commissioned  to  rule  in 
His  name.  The  Greeks  saw  in  the  sacraments  the 
symbols  of  the  great  verities  of  the  Christian  life,  in- 
structive monuments  or  witnesses  to  a  divine  presence 
and  activity,  whose  traces  were  always  and  everywhere 
to  be  discerned.  The  Latins  identified  the  symbols 
with  the  things  signified,  and  with  them  the  sacraments 
became  external  agencies,  in  the  hands  of  the  hie- 
rarchy, for  communicating  grace,  the  exclusive  chan- 
nels through  which  the  divine  life  was  imparted.  In 
the  comprehensiveness  of  the  Greek  estimate  of  Christ 
and  His  revelation,  the  salvation  of  which  He  is  the 
author  was  not  confined  to  those  in  union  with  the  ec- 
clesiastical organization,  and  His  presence  was  seen 
working  unconsciously  in  devout  heathens  in  all  ages  ; , 
in  the  Latin  scheme  of  redemption,  salvability  was 
not  possible  outside  the  communion  of  the  visible  or- 
ganization ;  the  whole  body  of  heathens,  without  dis- 
crimination, as  well  as  all  infants  dying  without  bap- 
tism, were  inevitably  lost  forever  to  the  vision  and 
the  presence  of  God.  The  Greeks  thought  of  eternal 
life  as  consisting  in  that  knowledge  of  God  and  of 
Christ  which  carried  with  it  the  harmonious  develop- 
ment of  the  whole  man  in  the  way  of  truth  and  right- 
eousness ;  the  lack  or  rejection  of  this  knowledge 
was  death  —  the  absence  or  negation  of  life.  In  the 
state  of  existence  hereafter,  the  resurrection  was  con- 
ceived as  the  standing  up  again  in  the  larger  fullness 
of  that  immortal  life  which  is  in  Christ.  The  Latin 
mind  translated  these  conceptions  into  quantitative  es- 


180        THEOLOGY  IN  TEE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

timates :  the  resurrection  was  the  revivifying  of  the 
identical  particles  of  that  body  which  had  been  laid 
in  the  grave  and  seen  corruption ;  eternal  life  be- 
came unending  happiness,  and  eternal  death  unending 
woe.^ 

The  two  theologies  which  we  have  contrasted  do  not 
stand  to  each  other  in  the  relation  of  the  true  to  the 
false,  but  of  the  higher  to  the  lower.  The  principle 
of  historical  continuity  was  not  violated  when  Greek 
thought  was  translated  into  the  theological  idiom  of 
the  Latin  mind.  Latin  Christianity  was  but  the  pop- 
ularized version  of  Christian  truth  suited  to  the  unde- 
veloped capacity  of  the  new  races  that  were  entering 
the  empire,  and  alike  adapted  to  the  declining  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  forces  of  a  people  whose  career  of 

^  The  "  larger  hope  "  for  humanity  which  Clement  and  Origen 
asserted  is  nowhere  denied  by  Athanasius  ;  indeed,  it  was  im- 
plied in  his  doctrine  of  the  incarnation.  The  same  view  was  en- 
tertained by  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  and  more  emphatically  by 
Gregory  of  Nyssa,  —  the  one  an  intimate  friend,  and  the  other  a 
brother,  of  Basil.  It  is  found  in  the  writings  of  Didymus,  who 
was  held  in  high  repute  in  Alexandria,  and  was  affirmed  in  the 
Antiochian  school  by  Diodorus  and  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  —  a 
school  of  which  Chrysostom  was  a  pupil.  In  view  of  this  har- 
mony among  the  leading  representatives  of  Greek  theology,  the 
language  of  Basil  and  Chrysostom  may  be  regarded  as  dictated 
by  the  practical  requirements  of  their  work  as  great  preachers 
and  energetic  administrators  of  large  dioceses,  rather  than  as 
theologians  inquiring  only  after  what  is  true.  They  may  have 
acquiesced  in  an  unfortunate  admission  of  Origen's,  of  whom 
Basil  was  an  earnest  admirer,  that  it  might  be  necessary  to  preach 
what  one  did  not  believe.  Upon  Chrysostom's  position,  see  Ne- 
ander,  Ch.  Hist.,  iv.  p.  442.  Basil  was  also  rebukiug  the  presump- 
tion of  those  who  abused  the  belief  that  punishment  would  have 
its  limits.  Cf .  Regulce  Brev.  Tract,  Interrog.  267.  See,  also.  Smith 
and  Wace,  Did.  Chris.  Biog.,  Art.  Eschatology,  for  a  careful 
summary  of  the  opinion  of  the  ancient  church. 


DETERIORATION  OF   GREEK   THEOLOGY.    181 

advance  was  over,  and  who  were  passing  into  the  stage 
of  senile  weakness  and  decay.  For  the  second  child- 
hood which  was  overtaking  the  old  civilization,  and  for 
the  first  childhood  in  the  history  of  the  new,  Greek 
theology,  with  its  comprehensive  range  and  its  lofty 
spirituality,  was  unsuitable ;  even  Origen  had  felt  the 
inadequacy  of  the  highest  spiritual  motives  for  those 
who  were  sinking  into  moral  degeneracy  with  the  grow- 
ing barbarism,  or  for  those  who,  in  the  fii'st  Hush  of 
physical  vigor,  were  given  over  to  bestiality  and  a 
brutal  materialism.  Under  such  circumstances  it  was 
a  thing  to  be  expected  that  Greek  theology  would  show 
a  tendency  to  Latinize,  and  the  lower  interpretation  of 
spiritual  truth  be  accepted  in  the  place  of  the  higher. 
Traces  of  such  a  deterioration  may  be  seen  in  the 
Greek  fathers  of  the  fifth  century ;  even  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  fourth  century,  such  writers  as  Basil,  the 
two  Gregories,  and  Chrysostom,  show  a  tendency  to 
subordinate  thought  to  rhetoric,  and  while  true  in  the 
main  to  the  spirit  and  method  of  Greek  theology,  are 
unconsciously  affected  by  the  waning  light  of  the  old 
Hellenic  culture. 

The  age  was  over  which  had  produced  a  Clement, 
an  Origen,  and  an  Athanasius ;  centuries  were  destined 
to  roll  away  before  the  work  which  they  had  dropped 
could  be  resumed  in  their  spirit  and  with  their  advan- 
tages at  the  point  where  they  left  it.  Meantime  no 
opening  was  offered  to  the  Greek  church,  in  the  prov- 
idence of  God,  by  which  its  life  might  be  quickened 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  missionary  zeal.  No  mission 
devolved  upon  it  to  undertake  the  training  of  the  new 
peoples,  with  whom,  in  the  mystery  of  the  divine  pur- 
pose, lay  the  future  of  civilization.  Closed  in  as  the 
Eastern  empire  became  by  races  inaccessible  to  Chris- 


182   THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES, 

tian  influences,  the  Eastern  church  was  not  only  robbed 
of  the  larger  part  of  its  territory,  but  its  spirit  was 
benumbed  and  chilled,  and  it  passed  into  that  state  of 
stagnant  conservatism  which  has  characterized  its  his- 
tory to  our  own  day.  Tradition  was  substituted  for 
free  theological  inquiry;  scholastic  refinements  and 
adherence  to  formal  orthodoxy  were  valued  as  of  the 
highest  moment.  To  make  a  mistake  in  the  matter  of 
dogma  became  to  the  Greek  the  one  unpardonable  sin. 
The  anthropomorphism,  against  which  its  greatest  the- 
ologians had  struggled  in  the  endeavor  to  maintain 
the  divine  existence  as  a  purely  spiritual  one,  became, 
through  the  blind  and  partisan  efforts  of  the  monkish 
orders,  the  popular  conception  of  Deity.  God  was 
conceived  as  existing  in  human  form,  and  with  this  be- 
lief came  image  worship,  and  the  cultus  which  depends 
upon  material  agencies  to  feed  the  life  of  the  immortal 
spirit.  The  writings  of  the  pseudo-Dionysius  (a.  d. 
600),  who,  following  the  later  Neo-Platonists,  put  God 
at  an  infinite  remove  from  man,  filling  up  the  chasm 
between  them  with  a  heavenly  hierarchy  of  graded  an- 
gelic existences,  whose  continuators  in  the  church  on 
earth  were  the  hierarchy  of  bishops,  priests,  and  dea- 
cons, —  these  writings  were  received,  in  the  ignorance 
of  the  age,  as  having  an  apostolic  origin,  and  became 
more  influential  than  the  fathers  in  moulding  the  opin- 
ion and  practice  of  earnest  and  aspiring  souls.  The 
pious  author  of  the  Celestial  Hierarchy^  who  had  bap- 
tized under  a  Christian  name  the  last  expiring  breath 
of  paganism,  had,  like  his  Neo-Platonist  teachers,  de- 
clared it  possible  to  attain  the  vision  of  God  by  throw- 
ing the  soul  into  a  trance  through  the  well-known 
methods  of  oriental  asceticism.  It  is  interesting  and 
touching,  withal,  to  notice  in  the  history  of  Greek 


THE  MODERN  GREEK   CHURCH.  183 

mysticism  so  late  as  the  fourteenth  century,  how  a 
controversy  arose  on  the  point  whether  the  light  which 
the  deluded  monks,  in  their  hallucinations,  fancied  sur- 
rounded their  heads  as  a  halo,  was  not  the  uncreated 
light  which  had  also  shone  around  the  head  of  the 
Saviour  upon  Mount  Tabor,  —  a  feeble  reminiscence 
of  Greek  theology  in  its  better  days  with  its  postulate 
of  revelation  as  light,  —  that  light  in  which  there  was 
no  darkness  at  all. 

The  Greek  church  still  retains  in  its  decayed  and 
immobile  condition  the  traces  of  its  high  descent.  De- 
spite its  external  resemblances  to  the  Latin  church, 
the  ignorance  of  its  clergy,  or  the  superstitions  and 
customs  which  repel  the  casual  observer  of  its  wor- 
ship, there  may  still  be  seen  in  its  standards  and  lit- 
urgies the  ruling  conceptions  of  those  ancient  masters 
of  theology,  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Athanasius. 
In  the  high  importance  which  it  has  always  attached 
to  preaching,  in  the  ethical  and  homiletic  tone  of  its 
liturgies,  remaining  substantially  unchanged  since  their 
revision  by  Basil  and  Chrysostom,  —  liturgies  which, 
to  the  practical  mind  of  the  West,  seem  interminably 
long,  with  a  dreary  waste  of  words,  —  in  its  attitude  of 
doctrinal  protest  against  the  errors  of  Rome  and  of 
Geneva,  there  still  speaks  the  voice  of  the  most  an- 
cient, the  most  spiritual  theology,  as  it  existed  in  the 
days  before  its  standard  was  lowered  in  the  presence 
of  an  all  pervading  barbarism.  The  Greek  church 
is  as  far  removed  from  the  spirit  of  Rome  and  of 
a  Latinized  Anglicanism  on  the  one  hand,  as  it  is 
from  the  types  of  Protestant  theology  which,  under 
the  name  of  Calvinism,  have  perpetuated  the  spirit 
and  the  methods  of  Augustine,  and  to  neither  the 
one  nor  Ihe  other  does  it  lend  a  willing  ear.     It  still 


184  THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES, 

lies  inactive,  seemingly  unconscious  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  later  history,  and  may  long  continue  to  re- 
main so.  Its  future  is  perhaps  involved  in  the  des- 
tinies of  the  vast  empire  which  owns  its  allegiance ; 
the  fate  of  the  Turk  and  the  Mohammedan  oppressor, 
when  revealed,  may  be  the  signal  for  its  awakening. 
No  mission,  as  has  been  said,  came  to  it  as  to  its  Latin 
neighbor  to  become  the  school-master  to  a  new  people 
with  a  high  destiny ;  and  yet,  once  in  history,  there 
came  a  great  revival  of  the  study  of  Hellenic  litera- 
ture, which,  while  attended  by  grave  evils,  especially 
in  the  home  of  the  papacy,  became  among  the  north- 
ern nations  the  precursor  of  the  Protestant  Reforma- 
tion. The  study  of  Greek  became  from  that  time  the 
basis  of  a  new  learning  for  Latin  Christendom.  Then 
it  appeared  that  the  Greek  church  had,  during  all  of 
her  apparent  lifelessness,  been  assigned  a  providential 
role  in  history,  —  to  preserve  the  ancient  literature  and 
hand  it  over  when  the  new  world  was  ready  to  receive 
it.  In  the  consolation  which  Milton  felt  when  he  found 
himself  debarred  from  the  activities  of  life,  there  may 
be  found  the  divine  message  to  the  apparently  lifeless 
churches  of  the  Orient,  —  they  also  serve  who  only 
stand  and  wait.       '■-  ^  .  v     •      ~ 

II. 

*  The  mission  of  the  Latin  or  Roman  Catholic  church 
began  when  that  of  the  Greek  church  had  apparently 
ended.  When  the  barbarian  races  overspread  the 
Western  Empire,  overthrowing  civilization  and  intro- 
ducing everywhere  the  wildest  disorder,  there  was  one 
institution  which  was  not  overthrown,  which  not  only 
resisted  the  shock,  but  girded  itself  anew  to  the  for- 
midable task  of  reducing  the  untamed  mass  of  human- 


MISSION   OF  THE  LATIN  CHURCH.       185 

ity  to  submission  and  order.  The  Latin  church  now 
began  to  reap  the  advantage  of  that  labor  of  organ- 
ization, which  had  been  slowly  elaborated  for  cen- 
turies, and,  like  a  subtle  net-work,  had  extended  itself 
throughout  the  limits  of  the  old  society.  The  Roman 
church  fell  heir  to  the  old  Roman  genius  for  conquest 
and  discipline ;  the  spirit  of  Roman  law  survived,  and 

1  was  perpetuated  in  ecclesiastical  institutions.  From  ^ 
the  sixth  to  the  ninth  century  the  work  of  convert- 
ing the  new  races  to  the  recognition  and  obedience  of 
the  church  went  on  with  unabated  and  successful 
ardor,  resembling  nothing  so  much  as  that  earlier 
process  of  conquest  by  which  the  city  of  Rome  had 

\  made  herself  mistress  of  the  nations.  The  races 
whom  old  Rome  could  never  entirely  vanquish  be- 
came in  course  of  time  the  submissive  children  of  the 
Roman  church,  receiving  from  its  hands  the  gifts 
which  they  had  spurned  at  the  hands  of  Roman  war- 
riors. 

While  the  period  of  the  early  Middle  Ages  presents 
but  little  direct  material  for  the  history  of  theology, 
there  may  be  traced  in  it  the  growth  of  sentiments 
which  are  charged  with  deep  meaning  for  the  future 
of  humanity.  Among  these,  the  most  prominent  was 
a  natural  and  spontaneous  growth  of  reverence  for 

\  the  bishops  of  Rome.  Up  to  the  time  of  Gregory  the 
Great  (590-604)  the  papacy,  although  it  had  contin- 
ued to  make  a  persistent  claim  to  the  primacy  of  the 
church,  had  gained  no  acknowledgment  of  its  author- 

,  ity  in  the  churches  of  the  East.  But  in  the  West, 
when  the  waves  of  the  barbarian  invasion  began  to 
subside,  and  the  constructive  instincts  of  men  began 
to  'assert  themselves,  the  opportunity  had  come  for 
the  Roman  see,  which  had  been  long  and  patiently 


186        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

awaited.  The  papacy  never  appeared  so  fair,  so  at- 
tractive, as  in  the  person  of  Gregory  the  Great,  who 
stood,  as  it  were,  on  the  dividing  line  between  two 
worlds,  with  the  modest  consciousness  of  a  great  des- 
tiny. Others  might  assume  more  pompous  titles,  as, 
for  example,  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  who 
called  himself  the  "  bishop  of  bishops,"  but  Gregory 
was  content,  in  the  consciousness  of  an  actual  greatness, 
to  be  designated  as  the  humblest  of  all,  "  the  servant 
of  the  servants  of  God."     The  rise  of  the  papacy  in 

^  the  new  world  was  no  usurpation  ;  there  was  at  first 
no  eager  grasping  after  power ;  the  popes  simply  stood 
and  received  that  which  came  to  them  as  the  willing 
offering  of  the  people.  In  the  confusion  which  every- 
where prevailed  there  sprang  up  the  desire  for  order, 
and  as  a  prerequisite  for  order,  some  common  centre 

'  of  unity  and  authority.  Where  could  such  a  centre 
be  looked  for  except  in  Rome,  whose  bishops  in  the 
general  depression  of  the  age  stood  so  high  above 
their  contemporaries?  It  seemed  only  natural  in  a 
world  from  which  God  stood  at  a  distance,  over  which 
all  His  waves  and  storms  had  been  breaking,  that 
some  one  should  have  been  appointed  as  His  vicar  or 
regent  to  stand  in  His  place  and  act  in  His  stead. 
The  papacy,  indeed,  as  men  then  began  to  regard  it, 
was  but  the  form  which  the  conviction  took  among  a 
rude  people,  of  the  truth  that  God  had  not  abandoned 
the  world  to  itself,  and  was  present,  in  the  person  of 
His  delegate,  to  order  and  control  its  affairs. 

\  The  idea  of  the  church  which  Augustine  had  done 
so  much  to  determine  was  now  further  developed,  and 
gained  a  new  significance  from  the  force  of  external 
events.     The  church  was  viewed  as  an  ark  of  deliVfer- 

i    ance,  —  a  refuge  from  the  dark  and  evil  world.     The 


THE  EMPIRE  BECOMES  A   THEOCRACY,    187 

Augustinian  idea,  that  only  some  of  those  within 
the  church  were  predestinated  to  salvation,  gradually 
disappeared  in  favor  of  the  more  comprehensive  and 
genial  view,  that  all  the  baptized  were  alike  elected  to 
a  great  opportunity.  The  church  became  more  entirely 
than  ever  the  mediator,  the  manifest  bond  of  union 
and  of  reconciliation  between  God  and  man.  In  com- 
munion with  the  church,  in  obedience  to  the  church, 
lay  the  principle  of  salvation  and  redemption. 

Such  was  the  aspect  of  the  church  to  devout  and 
timid  souls,  in  an  age  of  lawlessness  and  violence, 
when  the  great  world  had  lost  its  attractiveness,  and 
offered  for  the  many  no  prospect  of  peace  and  secu- 
rity. As  the  conquests  of  the  church  progressed,  and 
race  after  race  were  enrolled  in  its  ranks  by  baptism, 
it  became  evident  that  it  was  the  most  potent  of  agen- 
cies for  promoting  the  end  most  desired,  —  order  and 
due  submission  to  authority.  A  process  was  silently 
but  surely  operating,  which,  bringing  the  people  under 
the  control  of  the  clergy,  the  clergy  under  the  obe-y 
dience  of  the  bishops,  and  the  bishops  into  due  sub- 
jection to  the  earthly  head  of  the  church  at  Rome, 
was  also  consolidating  the  empire  into  one  great  family 
united  by  a  common  faith  and  hope.  In  this  process 
the  civil  power  lent  its  aid;  force  was  employed  to 
convert  the  peoples  whose  stubborn  adherence  to  hea- 
thenism the  moral  influence  of  missionaries  had  failed 
to  overcome ;  legislation  was  enacted  by  the  state  en- 
forcing obedience  to  the  church's  decrees.  What 
would  have  been  the  history  of  the  church,  if  Charle- 
magne and  his  predecessors  had  not  given  their  willing 
support  to  its  policy,  is  a  question  concerning  which  it 
is  idle  to  speculate.  Those  able  rulers  had  also  a  pol- 
icy of  their  own  to  support,  and  believed  themselves 


188   THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

to  be  strengthening  the  civil  authority  by  an  alliance 
with  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  Such  might  have  been  the 
result  had  the  external  course  of  affairs  been  ordered 
differently  than  it  was.  It  was  made  clear  by  the 
subsequent  course  of  the  history  that  the  alliance  with 
the  church  had  not  strengthened  the  state.  When  the 
vast  empire  of  Charlemagne  was  broken  into  frag- 
ments, with  a  constant  tendency  to  divide  and  subdi- 
vide, one  thing  became  evident,  that  the  Roman  bishop 
was  master  of  the  situation;  the  state  had  become 
hopelessly  divided,  while  the  church  was  united  under 

^   the  rule  of  the  pope ;  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the 

J  state  had  been  simply  resolving  itself  into  a  church,  — 
a  theocracy,  whose  divine  sovereign  was  the  Bishop  of 
Rome.  The  reverse  had  been  taking  place  of  what  is 
seen  in  Christendom  to-day,  when  the  church  is  divided 
and  the  state  is  united,  —  a  prophecy  to  the  minds  of 
some  that  the  process  is  destined  to  go  on,  till  the 

\  church  grows  into  and  becomes  identified  with  the 
state. 

The  period  known  as  the  Early  Middle  Ages,  ex- 
tending from  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  to 
the  dismemberment  of   the   empire   of  Charlemagne 

^  in  the  ninth  century,  is  marked  by  many  character- 
istics distinguishing  it  sharply  from  the  age  that  fol- 
lowed.     The  supremacy  of  the  pope,   so   far   as   it 

V  had  been  achieved,  was  chiefly  of  a  moral  kind,  rest- 
ing on  the  free  recognition  of  the  people,  winning  its 
way  to  such  recognition  because  of  its  genuine  ser- 
vices to  the  cause  of  morality  and  of  order.  This 
period  is  in  some  respects  also  analogous  to  the  career 
of  the  Jewish  church.     Underneath  its  religious  man- 

^  ifestations  may  be  discerned  the  deistic  conception  of 
God  as  outside  of  the  world  in  the  distant  heavens, 


LOW  STAGE  OF  RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT.   189 

while  morality  rested  for  its  sanctions  upon  a  belief  in 
temporal  rewards  and  punishments.  But  the  connec- 
tion of  religion  and  morality  was  not  a  close  one,  and 
despite  the  efforts  of  the  church  there  prevailed  the 
idea,  always  seen  in  the  initial  stages  of  religious  de- 
velopment, that  God  was  pleased  at  His  acknowledg- 
ment by  men  apart  from  the  nature  of  the  service 
rendered  to  Him,  or  that  what  was  desired  by  them 
was  to  be  obtained  by  asking.  Even  the  missionaries 
themselves  condescended  to  an  argument,  which  had 
great  weight  with  their  heathen  auditors,  that  the 
Christian  God  was  stronger  than  the  old  deities,  and 
disposed  to  aid  by  His  powerful  support  those  who 
accepted  His  allegiance  or  to  thwart  the  schemes  of 
those  who  rejected  it.  The  argument  told  upon  the 
barbarian  races  who  were  inclined  to  attribute  to  the 
weakness  of  their  deities  the  disasters  experienced  in 
the  long  process  of  migration,  and  whose  hold  upon 
their  worshipers  had  been  further  relaxed  in  conse- 
quence of  the  breaking  up  of  the  old  local  associa- 
tions. Besides,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  victory  did  clearly 
seem  to  follow  the  acknowledgment  of  the  Christian 
Deity.  So  reasoned  the  high-priest  of  heathenism  in 
England,  when  Christianity  was  first  presented  for  his 
acceptance,  —  the  old  gods  had  never  done  much  for 
him,  though  he  had  been  faithful  in  their  service,  and 
it  might  be  expedient  to  make  a  change  in  the  hope 
of  better  results.  Clovis  in  an  emergency  prayed  to 
the  Christian  God,  and  obtained  a  great  victory.  The 
Burgundians,  who  were  among  the  earliest  races  to 
be  converted,  finding  themselves  at  the  mercy  of  the 
Huns,  applied  for  baptism  to  the  neighboring  Chris- 
tian bishop  as  a  preservative  against  those  sons  of  the 
demons. 


190  THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

In  the  dense  ignorance  that  closed  in  around  the 
Western  empire,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  traces 
of  the  old  Hellenic  culture  have  not  entirely  disap- 
peared. The  Irish-Scotch  clergy  alone  seem  to  have 
maintained  a  knowledge  of  the  Greek  language  and 
literature ;  and  at  a  time  when  it  was  the  universal 
belief  that  aU  outside  the  church  were  doomed  to 
endless  woe,  it  is  curious  to  read  of  Irish  monks 
proclaiming  in  Germany,  to  the  great  scandal  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  Boniface,  the  doctrine  of  a  plurality  of 
worlds  and  of  the  possible  salvation  of  the  heathen. 
The  famous  John  Scotus  Erigena  in  the  ninth  cen- 
tury holds  the  same  relation  to  the  world  of  letters 
that  Charlemagne  does  to  the  slowly  rising  civilization, 
—  both  of  them,  as  it  were,  men  born  out  of  due  time, 
phenomena  as  striking  as  the  sudden  and  inexplicable 
appearance  of  comets  darting  across  the  dark  heavens. 
John  Scotus  was  one  of  the  very  few  with  any  knowl- 
edge of  Greek.  He  had  studied  the  works  of  Plato 
and  of  Origen  to  such  advantage  as  to  produce  a  sys- 
tem of  religious  philosophy  of  vast  scope  and  pro- 
fundity, the  anticipation  in  all  important  aspects  of 
the  systems  of  our  own  day.^  But  John  Scotus  only 
confused  and  puzzled  his  age  ;  he  seemed  to  be  ortho- 
dox, but  in  a  fashion  hardly  available  for  practical 

1  "  La  theologie  de  Jean  Scot,  hereti^re  des  plus  grandes  con- 
ceptions de  I'Elglise  d'Orient,  ne  convenait  pas  an  Christianisme 
du  moyen  §,ge.  Elle  ouvrait  h.  la  pensee  religieuse  d'immense 
perspectives  ;  elle  r^pandait  de  hautes  clartes  sur  les  problemes 
les  plus  difficiles  de  la  me'tapliysique  chretienne  ;  elle  continuait 
les  traditions  de  ces  magnifiques  genies,  qui  avaient  dleve  le 
Christianisme  au  sommet  de  la  philosophic  elle-merae.  Mais 
telle  lumifere  dtait  trop  eclatante  pour  les  faibles  yeux  de  la 
Scholastique."  —  Vacherot^  Histoire  de  Vecole  d^Alexandrie,  iiL 
p.  81. 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF  THE  FILIOQUE.       191 

purposes ;  what  could  such  an  age  as  his  do  with  a 
man  who  talked  about  evil  as  a  negation,  as  having 
no  real  existence,  or  who  defined  predestination  as  the 
consciousness  of  achieving  one's  destiny.  At  a  later 
time  the  justice  which  he  failed  to  receive  in  his  life- 
time was  meted  out  to  him,  and  he  was  condemned  as 
a  heretic.  His  main  contribution  to  Latin  theology- 
was  his  translation  of  the  "  Celestial  Hierarchy "  of 
Dionysius,  hitherto  a  sealed  book  for  want  of  knowl- 
edge of  the  Greek  language.  In  the  main  the  atti- 
tude of  Gregory  the  Great  toward  learning  was  main- 
tained throughout  the  early  Middle  Ages,  —  the  piet- 
ism which  regards  all  study  that  does  not  concern  the 
salvation  of  the  soul  as  useless  and  profane.  Alcuin 
rebuked  the  too  eager  curiosity  of  Charlemagne  to  un- 
derstand the  secrets  of  the  natural  world  ;  the  study  ' 
of  nature  and  of  the  classics  was  regarded  as  danger- 
ous and  heathenish ;  attention  was  concentrated  on  the 
Bible  and  Latin  ecclesiastical  writers,  among  whom  . 
Augustine  had  the  preeminence.  / 

The  theological  controversies  of  the  ninth  century 
are  significant  as  showing  the  drift  of  religious  thought 
toward  what  became  later  the  established  authorita- 
tive teaching  of  the  church,  although  none  of  them 
were  conducted  in  a  satisfactory  way  or  brought  to 
any  definite  conclusion  by  representative  synodal  ac- 
tion. The  problem  of  the  Jllioque,  —  whether  the  Holy 
Spirit  proceeded  from  the  Father  alone,  as  the  Greeks 
maintained,  or  from  the  Father  and  the  Son,  whatever 
may  be  its  true  speculative  solution,  was  decided  in 
favor  of  the  latter  hypothesis,  and  the  filioque  was 
added  about  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century  to  the 
Nicene  Creed.  It  may  be  difficult  to  fathom  the  mo- 
tives which  have  always  made  this  conclusion  most  ac- 


192        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

ceptable  to  the  Latin  mind,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt 
of  the  fact.  One  can  readily  see  that  with  the  gen- 
erally received  view  of  the  church  as  an  institution 
founded  on  earth  by  Christ,  the  government  of  which 
had  been  intrusted  after  His  departure  to  the  pope  as 
His  vicar,  it  would  be  incongruous  to  think  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  as  a  diffused  spiritual  activity  not  bound 
to  the  hierarchy  or  confined  within  the  ecclesiastical 
organization,  but  proceeding  from  the  Father  alone, 
and  therefore  at  liberty  to  act  as  the  wind,  where  He 
listed.  Such  a  view  would  undermine  the  received 
view  of  the  nature  of  the  church  as  a  definite  organi- 
zation beyond  the  communion  of  which  there  was  no 
salvation. 

The  adoptionist  controversy  which  arose  in  Spain 
shows  the  influence  of  the  prevalent  Mohammedan 
faith  in  weakening  the  adherence  of  Catholic  Chris- 
tians to  the  doctrine  of  the  incarnation.  In  the  face 
of  the  vigorous  proclamation  of  Islam,  Far  he  it  from 
God  that  He  should  have  a  son,  the  Spanish  Chris- 
tians were  inclined  to  confine  the  real  Sonship  of 
Christ  to  His  divine  nature,  and  to  regard  His  human 
nature  as  alien  from  God,  and  as  brought  into  relation 
with  him  by  adoption.^  The  church  in  the  Frankish 
empire  opposed  the  principle  of  adoption,  but  it  is 
evident  that  on  both  sides  of  the  controversy  there  was 
a  disposition  to  lay  the  supreme  stress  on  the  divine 
element  in  Christ,  while  His  humanity  was  becoming 
the  mere  shadow  or  reminiscence  of  the  great  reality 
of  the  God  made  man.  The  historical  Christ  had  re- 
treated to  a  distance  by  the  side  of  the  equally  distant 

^  That  the  position  known  as  adoptionism  was  only  a  natural 
inference  from  the  decision  of  the  sixth  general  council  has  been 
fihowu  by  Dorner,  Person  of  Christy  b.  ii.  p.  262. 


DISCUSSION  OF  TRANSUBSTANTIATION.     193 

Father,  and  coming  events  were  soon  to  transform 
Him  into  the  cold,  unpitying  Judge  who  stood  await- 
ing the  close  of  this  eartlily  dispensation,  when  hu- 
manity should  be  summoned  to  His  dread  tribunal. 

It  was  in  the  ninth  century  that  the  doctrine  of 
transubstantiation  became  for  the  first  time  the  sub- 
ject of  formal  discussion.  In  the  ancient  church  from 
an  early  period,  and  chiefly  by  oriental  writers  in  Asia 
Minor,  a  highly  rhetorical  language  had  been  used  on 
the  subject  of  the  Eucharist,  which  might  seem  to 
imply  the  belief  in  an  actual  transformation  in  the  ele- 
ments of  bread  and  wine.  The  Greek  theologians,  as 
has  been  already  said,  interpreted  the  expressions,  the 
hody  and  the  hlood  of  Christ,  as  symbols  or  figures  of 
a  spiritual  reality ;  and  even  the  early  Latin  fathers, 
as  Tertullian  and  Cyprian,  vacillated  in  their  utter- 
ances between  the  spiritual  and  material  interpreta- 
tion of  the  great  Christian  feast.  Augustine  had  been  • 
obliged  by  his  principle  of  predestination  to  hold  the 
spiritual  view,  according  to  which  the  benefits  of  the 
sacraments  were  received  only  by  the  elect,  while  to 
all  others  they  were  but  an  empty  sign.  It  certainly 
cannot  be  called  a  propitious  moment  in  the  ninth  ^^ 
century  for  the  clear  and  intelligent  discussion  of  any 
theological  topic,  when  the  intellect  of  the  new  races 
was  only  just  awakening  to  its  first  activity,  when  the 
few  who  bore  the  title  of  scholar  were  not  only  unac- 
quainted with  the  history  of  theology,  but  were  wholly 
untrained  in  the  art  of  reasoning  and  the  expression 
of  thought.  Under  such  circumstances  it  is  remarka- 
ble how  the  common  sense  and  robust  spiritual  nature 
of  some  of  the  most  intelligent  men  of  the  age  pro- 
tested against  the  notion  advanced  by  the  monk  Rad- 
bertus  (831),  that  a  miraculous  change  took  place  at 

13 


194       THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

the  consecration  of  the  elements.  But  Ratramnus 
(Bertram),  John  Scotus  Erigena,  Rabanns  Maurus, 
and  others  could  not  remake  their  time;  Radbertus 
had  expressed  the  tendency  of  the  church  at  large  — 
the  presence  of  Christ,  His  continuous  incarnation  in 
the  world,  was  not  in  the  activity  of  the  reason  or  in 
the  spiritual  life  of  His  followers,  but  in  the  sacrament 
of  the  altar,  and  even  there  it  was  not  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  but  His  body,  that  was  offered  in  sacrifice  and 
eaten  by  the  people. 

There  was  one  other  controversy  (847-868)  more 
bitter  and  of  longer  duration  than  the  others.  Gott- 
schalk  was  a  monk,  the  son  of  a  Saxon  count,  who  had 
been  from  infancy  devoted  by  his  parents  to  the  mo- 
nastic profession.  Although  of  a  deeply  religious  na- 
ture,  he  desired  after  reaching  maturity  to  free  him- 
self from  the  shackles  of  monastic  obligation,  but  when 
he  made  the  attempt  he  found  it  to  be  impossible. 
Another  power  stood  between  him  and  God,  making 
him  realize  that  he  was  no  longer  free  to  follow  inde- 
pendently the  bent  of  his  native  disposition.  Unable 
to  escape  the  monastic  thralldom  he  gave  himself  to  a 
deeper  study  of  Augustine,  and  advocated  in  an  ex- 
treme form,  and  in  a  passionate  way,  the  doctrines  of 
predestination  and  reprobation.  He  became  the  type 
and  forerunner  of  those  who  in  later  times  would  de- 
tach the  Augustinian  doctrine  of  election  and  grace 
from  their  close  connection  with  the  Latin  institution 
of  the  church,  as  Augustine  had  held  them,  and  find  a 
larger  liberty  and  higher  manhood  in  depending  upon 
God  alone  and  directly,  through  the  bond  of  His  final 
decree.  But  meantime,  as  Gottschalk  realized  in  a 
life  of  painful  martyrdom,  it  was  the  church's  decree 
and  not  God's  which  regulated  the  process  of  human 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  "AGES   OF  FAITH."   196 

salvation.  Despite  the  prevailing  reverence  for  Au- 
gustine, the  doctrine  of  individual  election  by  divine 
decree  was  abandoned  by  the  most  representative  the- 
ologians for  the  election  through  baptism  of  an  uncon- 
scious humanity  to  the  discipline  and  the  cultus  of  the 
church. 

in. 

The  ninth  century  forms  the  culmination  of  the 
early  Middle  Ages.  It  was  marked  by  the  awaken- 
ing of  the  human  mind,  a  curiosity  for  knowledge, 
the  rise  of  schools  in  which  the  rudiments  of  educa- 
tion were  taught,  and  by  a  group  of  theologians  who 
devoted  themselves  with  great  energy  and  vigor  to  the 
religious  issues  of  the  time.  The  papal  see  had  been 
occupied  by  great  men  like  Nicholas  I.  and  Hadrian, 
who  used  their  power  during  the  political  disturbances 
of  the  age  in  behalf  of  the  higher  interests  of  the 
church,  and  almost  anticipated  the  sway  of  Hilde- 
brand  and  his  successors.  But  the  results  which  had 
been  so  laboriously  achieved  in  raising  the  new  world 
out  of  barbarism  suddenly  disappeared  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  century,  and  two  centuries  rolled  away 
before  the  work  thus  interrupted  was  again  resumed 
on  the  same  level.  In  the  eleventh  century,  when  the 
church  emerges  from  the  dark  ages,  and  mediaeval 
theology  enters  upon  its  second  stage,  it  was  no  longer 
the  same  world  that  it  had  been.  A  mighty  change 
had  passed  over  the  human  spirit,  which  can  be  ac- 
counted for  only  by  a  divine  Providence  in  human 
affairs  mysteriously  ordering  external  events  in  the  in- 
terest of  a  spiritual  development. 

The  early  Middle  Ages,  taken  as  a  whole,  reveal  a 
people  that  had  not  yet  been  brought  into  complete 


196   THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

subjection  to  tlie  churcli.  It  was  characterized  by  a 
certain  freedom  and  simplicity  in  the  religious  life. 
The  image  worship  which  the  degenerate  East  had 
approved  at  a  general  council  (789)  was  not  accept- 
able to  the  healthier,  manlier  tone  of  the  western 
mind,  and  had  been  rejected  by  the  church  in  Eng- 

^  land  and  on  the  continent.  There  had  been  theolo- 
gians like  Agobard  of  Lyons,  and  Claudius  of  Turin, 
who  had  discerned  the  outlines  of  a  purer  Chris- 
tianity with  the  clearness  of  vision  of  the  reformers 

^  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  people,  and  even  the 
clergy,  do  not  seem  to  have  stood  greatly  in  awe  of 
the  pope's  excommunications ;  such  a  thing  as  the 
papal  ban  or  interdict  was  unknown ;  the  property 
of  the  church  had  not  been  regarded  as  having  a 
sacred,  inalienable  character,  while  the  contributions 
demanded  for  its  support  needed  civil  legislation  to 
enforce  their  payment.  The  common  people  showed 
no  appreciation  of  a  high  moral  ideal,  no  deep  con- 
viction of  sin;  on  the  contrary,  the  migration  of  the 
barbarians  seemed  to  have  had  for  its  first  effects  the 
dissolution  of  morals  in  an  extraordinary  degree.  If 
the  course  of  external  circumstances  had  not  come  to 
the  aid  of   the  church,  it  does   not  seem   as  though 

''  Europe  would  ever  have  bent  its  head  to  the  yoke  of 
the  priesthood.  What  are  called  the  "  ages  of  faith  " 
had  not  yet  begun. 

The  causes  of  the  change  which  came  over  the 
human  spirit  may  be  roughly  traced  to  the  profound 
as  well  as  extensive  social  disturbances,  caused  by  the 

'   second  migration  which  went  on  in  the  ninth  century. 

s  The  Huns  appeared  with  renewed  numbers  and  en- 
ergy, overrunning  the  Prankish  empire  as  far  as  the 
sea  before  they  returned ;  the  Northmen  came  down 


THE  EFFECT  OF  TERROR.  197 

upon  the  coast  of  France,  and,  sweeping  south  by  sea, 
took  possession  of  Italy ;  the  Danes  invaded  and  con- 
quered England;  the  Saracens  passed  through  the 
Mediterranean,  and  appeared  even  before  the  gates  of 
Rome.  In  consequence  of  these  movements,  govern- 
ment and  order  grew  weak  and  almost  disajDpeared ; 
monastic  establishments  were  pillaged  and  burned  ; 
life  and  property  became  everywhere  insecure.  And, 
as  if  the  universal  terror  caused  by  these  events  was 
not  sufficient,  there  was  bred  a  general  conviction  that 
the  end  of  the  world  was  at  hand,  —  that  when  the 
year  1000  should  be  reached  the  world  would  be  de- 
stroyed, and  humanity  summoned  to  appear  before 
the  judgment-seat  of  Christ.  The  shadow  of  a  great 
dread  fell  upon  Christendom,  and  took  shape  in  the 
universal  sense  of  horror  of  the  final  judgment  that  ^ 
was  impending.  Such  was  the  divine  method  of  re- 
vealing to  men  the  sinfulness  of  sin,  and  rousing  into 
activity  the  human  conscience.  The  old  idea  that  God 
was  pledged,  as  it  were,  to  protect  His  own  people 
and  to  punish  their  enemies  could  thrive  no  longer' 
after  such  a  visitation  at  His  hands.  The  attention 
of  men  was  drawn  away  to  a  future  world,  where  the 
sins  which  had  been  punished  so  terribly  in  this  world 
would  be  followed  by  endless  retribution,  or  where 
alone  those  who  had  served  God  faithfully  would  re- 
ceive the  reward  which  had  been  denied  them  here. 

Under  circumstances  like  these  it  did  not  require 
civil  legislation  to  bring  a  terrified  people  into  com- 
plete and  even  abject  submission  to  the  church  and  *" 
her  offices.  We  read,  on  the  eve  of  this  dark  period, 
of  forged  decretals,  of  pretended  donations,  and  of 
stolen  titles  to  honor  and  dignity ;  but  it  was  not  these 
which  riveted   the   bands  of   ecclesiastical   authority 


198        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES, 

upon  the  people.  It  was  rather  the  workings  of  the 
V  human  conscience,  —  the  feeling  that  there  was  some- 
thing wrong,  in  man  or  in  the  world  around  him ;  that 
God  was  angry  and  was  making  His  wrath  felt  in 
visible  signs  which  could  not  be  mistaken.  It  needed 
no  longer  urgent  entreaty  to  induce  the  people  to  make 
offerings  to  God  and  His  church  of  their  worldly 
goods.  Property  had  lost  its  value  to  those  who  were 
concerned  about  the  safety  of  their  souls.  The  church 
grew  rich  with  the  money  and  the  lands  that  were  so 
freely  offered,  and  in  return  granted  remission  of  sins 
through  the  confessional,  and  by  the  power  of  the 
priesthood  kept  the  heavens  open  to  human  supplica- 
tion in  the  stupendous  mystery  of  the  altar.  When 
the  tenth  century  had  closed,  and  when  hope  again 
returned,  as  to  the  world  aftipr  the  deluge,  the  erection 
of  great  cathedrals  began,  —  offerings  to  Heaven  as 
for  a  great  deliverance,  in  which  were  written  the 
story  of  a  people's  experience.  In  their  vast  propor- 
tions, in  the  feeling  of  awe  and  the  sense  of  the  pro- 
found mystery  of  life  which  they  inspired,  —  the  mys- 
tery of  the  forest,  with  its  chastened,  solemn  light,  —  in 
the  dim  hope  for  humanity  revealed  through  the  dark- 
ness by  the  twinkling  candle  before  the  consecrated 
host,  in  the  columns,  pinnacles,  and  spires,  always 
pointing  away  from  earth  and  upward  to  heaven,  in 
an  architecture  thus  calculated  at  once  to  enthrall  the 
imagination  and  subdue  the  natural  impulses,  did  the 
spirit  of  mediaeval  Christianity  find  its  beautiful  em- 
bodiment. 

It  was  in  the  eleventh  century,  when  external  events 
had  given  one  common  tone  and  direction  to  Christian 
piety,  when  the  popular  belief  found  a  satisfactory  ex- 
pression in  the  prevailing  cultus,  when  asceticism  was 


ANSELM'S  DOCTRINE   OF  ATONEMENT.     199 

taking  on  an  oriental  severity,  when  the  human  mind 
sought  a  congenial  field  for  the  first  exercise  of  its  un- 
trained powers  in  the  effort  to  demonstrate  the  truth 
of  the  church's  teaching,  that  Anselm  arose,  the  first 
and  among  the  greatest  in  the  long  line  of  scholastic 
theologians. 

He  was  an  Italian  by  birth,  identified  with  the  mo- 
nastic revival  of  his  time,  and,  when  late  in  life  he 
became  archbishop  of  Canterbuiy,  he  devoted  himself 
in  an  ultramontane  spirit  to  the  extremest  claims  of 
the  papacy  in  its  conflicts  with  the  secular  power. 
The  merit  of  Anselm  lay  in  the  fact  that,  more  than 
any  one  who  came  after  him,  he  combined  with  his 
dialectic  capacity  the  deep  experience  of  an  earnest 
Christian  feeling.  Hence  he  was  successful  in  inter- 
preting the  deeper  moods  of  the  soul,  and  gave  such  a 
clear  expression  to  the  theory  which  underlay  the  re- 
ligious tendencies  of  his  age  that  he  still  remains 
their  best  exponent,  whenever  under  similar  circum- 
stances they  have  reappeared  in  the  church. 

The  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  with  which  his  name 
remains  associated,  was  elaborated  in  a  treatise  whose 
nominal  object  it  was  to  demonstrate  to  the  reason  the 
necessity  of  the  incarnation.  But  in  elaborating  this 
remarkable  theory  Anselm  was  in  reality  seeking  for 
a  bond  of  union  between  man  and  God  which  should 
satisfy  the  heart  and  conscience  as  well  as  the  specula- 
tive demands  of  his  intellect.  According  to  Anselm's 
theory  of  the  atonement,  man  owes  a  perfect  obedience 
to  the  divine  law ;  but  no  one  has  rendered  this  obedi-  ; 
ence,  and  so  all  men  have  fallen  in  debt,  for  sin  is  r 
a  debt,  the  failure  to  render  what  man  owes  to  God. 
Divine  justice  dooms  all  men  to  endless  punishment, 
since  sin  against  an  infinite  being  calls  for  infinite 


200        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES, 

penalty.  But  if  justice  were  executed  the  divine 
goodness  would  be  thwarted,  and  the  divine  goodness 
cannot  allow  that  all  men  should  be  endlessly  lost. 
The  divine  wisdom  therefore  devises  a  plan  whereby 
goodness  can  be  manifested  and  yet  justice  satisfied. 
Man  cannot  pay  the  debt,  and  yet,  if  it  is  to  be  paid, 
it  must  be  paid  by  man  for  it  is  man  that  has  sinned. 
Only  God  can  pay  the  debt ;  for  only  an  infinite  be- 
ing can  satisfy  infinite  justice,  only  God  can  satisfy 
God.  The  schism  in  the  divine  nature  is  healed  by 
God  becoming  man  and  rendering  a  full  satisfaction. 
The  obedience  of  Christ  as  the  God-man,  even  to  suf- 
fering and  death,  possesses  an  infinite  value,  and  is 
more  than  an  equivalent  for  what  the  race  would  have 
suffered  if  punished  forever,  as  the  honor  of  God  re- 
quired. Thus  the  debt  is  paid,  justice  is  satisfied, 
goodness  is  triumphant,  and  God  can  pardon  sinners. 
Upon  this  theory  of  Anselm,  it  may  be  remarked 
that  it  indicates  an  advance  in  theological  thought,  be- 
cause it  represents  the  action  in  humanity  of  a  quick- 
ened conscience  seeking  for  some  firm  ground  on 
which  to  rest  in  its  relation  to  God.  In  other  respects, 
also,  it  marks  an  advance  in  formal  theology  as  an  ef- 
fort to  escape  from  that  unchristian  dualism  which  had 
been  inclined  to  regard  the  death  of  Christ  as  in  some 
sense  a  ransom  paid  to  Satan,  in  order  to  withdraw 
mankind  from  his  power.  This  view  of  a  ransom 
paid  to  Satan  was  never,  it  should  be  said,  the  real 
doctrine  of  atonement  in  the  ancient  church.  In  Greek 
theology  the  incarnation  in  and  of  itself  was  the  power 
which  redeemed  and  regenerated  humanity,  —  which 
reconciled  man  to  God  and  God  to  man  ;  in  the  death 
of  Christ  was  seen  the  highest  and  most  conclusive 
evidence  of  God's  identification  with  the  interests  and 


CRITICISM  OF  ANSELM'S   THEORY.      201 

the  lot  of  humanity,  the  strongest  proof  of  the  divine 
love.  But  even  in  the  ancient  church  when  that  vast 
transition  of  souls  was  taking  place  from  the  dreary 
under-world,  as  conceived  by  Jewish  or  pagan  thought, 
upward  to  the  abode  of  light  and  blessedness,  there 
were  vague  and  obscure  allusions  to  a  process  by 
which  Satan,  the  lord  of  the  under-world,  had  lost  his 
hold  over  spirits  confined  within  his  domain,  through 
the  power  of  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Christ. 
For  Christ  Himself  had,  in  obedience  to  the  law  of 
death,  also  been  obliged  to  enter  the  under-world,  and 
there  by  His  preaching  had  made  known  to  captive 
spirits  His  mission  to  them  as  well  as  to  mankind,  and 
when  He  rose  again  from  the  dead,  He  had  won  the 
right  to  empty  Hades  of  all  believers.  Satan  had  for 
a  moment  held  the  Saviour  in  his  grasp,  and  although 
he  had  been,  as  it  were,  outwitted  by  an  event  which 
he  had  not  foreseen,  —  His  resurrection  again  to  life,  — 
yet  in  that  one  moment  in  which  he  had  held  Christ 
in  his  power  through  His  submission  unto  death,  there 
had  been  an  acquittal  of  his  claims  against  humanity. 
Such  was  the  view  which  may  have  led  to  the  inser- 
tion in  the  Apostles'  Creed  of  the  clause  now  so  dif-  ^ 
ficult  to  interpret :  "  He  descended  into  hell."  It 
remains  there  as  a  monument  to  a  great  historical 
process  in  human  thought,  —  how  through  the  belief 
in  the  universal  mission  of  a  Christ  ascended  into  the 
heavens  with  God,  the  belief  in  an  under-world  passed 
away,  yielding  to  the  Christian  heaven  of  perpetual 
light  and  ever-increasing  growth  in  divine  activities. 
In  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  historical  origin  of  the 
theory  had  long  been  forgotten,  its  residuum  took  the 
shape  that  the  death  of  Christ  had  been  a  ransom 
paid  to  Satan  for  the  deliverance  of   mankind  from  / 


202        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

his  power.  Anselm  took  a  great  step  forward  when 
he  combated  such  a  view  by  declaring  the  ransom  to 
have  been  paid  to  God,  and  for  the  schism  or  dual- 
ism of  two  hostile  powers,  Satan  and  God,  substituted 
a  dualism  within  the  divine  nature  itself  between 
justice  and  love.  That  the  older  view  did  not  easily 
disappear  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  it  was  reasserted  in 
the  following  century  by  no  less  distinguished  a  per- 
sonage than  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  so  far  was  he  car- 
ried away  by  his  opposition  to  the  theological  ration- 
alism of  his  time. 

It  may  be  further  remarked  concerning  this  theory 
of  Anselm  that  it  reflects  the  local  influences  of  the 
Middle  Ages  and  of  the  legal  attitude  of  the  Latin 
mind.  God  is  viewed  as  a  distant  and  mighty  suze- 
rain, having  an  absolute  claim  on  the  obedience  of  his 
subjects,  whose  honor  injured  or  diminished  requires 
an  awful  reparation.  No  figure  could  have  been 
chosen  more  expressive  in  the  days  of  feudalism  and 
of  chivalry  to  bring  home  to  the  conscience  the  rela- 
tion of  God  to  man.  In  the  conception  of  sin  as  the 
violation  of  an  external  law,  was  the  only  adequate 
representation  of  it  to  a  people  who  were  still  in  the 
condition  of  those  to  whom  Moses  had  declared  the  com- 
mandments on  Mount  Sinai,  amidst  the  awe-inspiring 
convulsions  of  the  outward  world,  and  who  had  not 
yet  learned  to  regard  tho  law  as  the  expression  of  the 
divine  character,  written  in  the  inward  nature  of  man, 
—  that  alluring  power  in  his  constitution  which  at- 
tracts him  onward  in  devoted  love  to  the  free  imitation 
of  God.  The  figure  of  sin  as  a  debt  had,  indeed, 
been  used  by  Christ  Himself  in  the  parable  of  the 
debtor  ;  but  there  were  some  features  in  the  Saviour's 
language  which  Anselm  passed  over  in  silence.    What 


THE  PARABLE   OF   THE  DEBTOR.         203 

was  tlie  significance  of  the  fact  that  the  servant's  lord 
had  at  first  freely  forgiven  the  whole  debt  because  it 
was  desired  of  him  ;  and  what  was  the  reason  that  the 
debt  came  back  upon  the  wicked  servant  after  it  had 
been  once  remitted  ?  The  Saviour  when  the  parable 
had  ended  dropped  the  figure  and  came  back  again  to 
the  language  of  reality :  "  So  also  shall  my  heavenly 
Father  do  unto  you,  if  ye  from  your  heart  forgive  not 
every  one  his  brother  their  trespasses."  The  real  de- 
fect in  Anselm's  doctrine  of  the  atonement  is  that  he 
built  upon  the  action  or  the  fears  of  a  diseased  and 
guilty  conscience  in  its  sense  of  alienation  from  God, 
instead  of  the  pure  and  free  consciousness  of  Him  who 
is  the  type  of  the  normal  man,  who  abode  in  undis- 
turbed communion  with  the  Father,  and  aims  through 
the  power  of  His  living  presence  to  bring  all  men  into 
the  same  relation.  The  thought  of  Anselm  was  defi- 
cient also  in  another  important  respect,  in  not  clearly 
exhibiting  the  process  by  which  the  individual  man 
availed  himself  of  the  advantage  springing  from  the 
payment  of  the  debt.  When  in  the  later  Protestant 
theologies  Anselm's  scheme  of  atonement,  like  Augus- 
tine's doctrine  of  predestination,  was  detached  from 
its  connection  with  the  Latin  idea  of  the  church,  the 
faith  of  the  individual  believer,  or  his  assent  to  the 
transaction,  became  the  means  by  which  its  benefits 
were  appropriated.  But  Anselm  made  no  such  provi- 
sion ;  the  tendency  of  his  thought  was  to  hand  over 
the  result  achieved  by  the  death  of  Christ  to  the  con- 
trol or  disposition  of  the  church,  and  thus  magnify 
the  church  as  the  real  mediator  between  God  and 
man. 

Anselm  had  spoken  of  the  suffering  of  Christ  in 
its  infinite  character  as  constituting  an  equivalent  for 


204        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

the  endless  punishment  of  mankind,  but  the  later 
School-men  thought  to  do  greater  honor  to  the  death  of 
Christ  by  regarding  it  as  more  than  an  equivalent,  and 
as  creating  in  addition  a  vast  treasury  of  merit  which, 
with  the  superfluous  merit  of  the  saints,  was  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  the  church,  and  by  it  assigned  at  will 
to  the  credit  of  individual  souls.  Such  was  the  foun- 
dation of  the  later  doctrine  of  indulgences;  it  may 
seem  but  a  parody  of  the  gospel  of  Christ;  it  has 
appeared  absurd  and  even  grotesque  to  modern  theo- 
logians ;  and  yet  in  it  can  be  discerned  the  gropings  of 
the  human  mind  in  a  crude  way,  and  under  great  dis- 
advantages, after  that  higher  conception  of  the  incar- 
nation and  of  the  solidarity  of  mankind  in  the  Son  of 
God,  which  has  been  presented  as  the  leading  princi- 
ple in  Greek  theology.  In  the  thought  of  Athanasius 
we  see  interpreted  the  struggles  of  mediaeval  scholas- 
ticism after  the  knowledge  of  Him  who  gave  His 
body  to  the  death  for  all,  and  thus  paid  the  universal 
debt ;  in  whom  all  mankind  have  died ;  who  taking 
humanity  up  into  Himself,  and  suffering  in  the  flesh 
for  all,  bestowed  salvation  upon  all;  through  whom 
humanity  restored  and  deified  is  endowed  henceforth 
in  its  own  right  with  a  divine,  recuperative  power. 


IV. 

Just  as  Greek  theology,  in  the  age  of  its  decline, 
showed  a  tendency  to  Latinize,  to  fall  away  from  the 
high  interpretation  of  spiritual  realities  into  literal 
and  crude  conceptions,  so  also  does  Latin  theology, 
when  it  begins  a  career  of  fresh  and  independent  ac- 
tivity in  the  later  Middle  Ages,  show  a  tendency  to 
Hellenize,  to  rise  by  processes  of  its  own  from  the  let- 


RISE   OF  SCHOLASTICISM.  205 

ter  to  the  spirit,  from  the  outward  to  the  inward  as- 
pects of  the  revelation  in  Christ.  Such  a  course  is 
necessitated  by  the  law  of  progress,  which  is  the  law 
of  the  life  of  humanity.  It  is  impossible  to  stay  the 
rising  force  of  the  human  mind,  or  check  the  expres- 
sion of  the  human  consciousness  divinely  sown  with 
the  seeds  of  eternal  truth,  when  the  expanding  germs 
press  forward  into  the  light.  External  repression  may 
seem  to  hinder  or  even  annihilate  the  process,  but  in 
reality  deepens,  intensifies,  and  strengthens  it.  In  the 
long  run,  nothing  can  succeed  against  the  truth,  but 
for  the  truth. 

The  peculiar  form  which  the  intellectual  activity  of 
the  Middle  Ages  assumed  is  known  as  Scholasticism,  / 
a  name,  however,  which  reveals  nothing  of  the  inner 
characteristics  of  a  process  which  lasted  for  centuries 
before  its  task  was  demonstrated  to  have  ended  in 
failure,  so  far  as  its  direct  object  was  concerned,  but 
which  indirectly  promoted  in  a  powerful  way  the  higher 
interests  of  humanity.  Scholasticism  originated  in  the 
schools,  which  were  afterward  developed  into  the  great 
universities,  and  was  therefore  primarily  an  intellect- 
ual movement,  as  contrasted  with  monasticism,  that 
other  great  institution  of  the  Middle  Ages,  whose 
primary  aim  was  the  cultivation  of  piety.  The  real 
object,  whether  avowed  or  tacitly  assumed,  of  this  vast 
and  long-continued  intellectual  process,  was  to  adjust 
the  theology  of  the  church  to  the  human  conscious- 
ness ;  to  show,  if  possible,  by  demonstration,  that  the 
dogmas  and  tenets,  handed  down  by  tradition  from 
Augustine  and  his  Latin  predecessors,  or  modified  since 
then  by  the  practical  necessities  of  the  church,  were  in 
harmony  with  the  reason  of  man,  and  were  the  abso- 
lute expression  of  divine  truth.     The  movement  did 


206   THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

not  begin  in  skepticism,  but  rested  upon  unquestioning 
assent  to  the  cburch's  teaching,  so  far  as  it  was  known 
or  understood.  The  scholastic  philosophers  took  it  for 
granted,  in  the  nature  of  things,  that  this  demonstra- 
tion could  be  reached,  —  the  only  question  was  as  to 
the  method.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  they  were 
unaware  that  there  had  been  an  earlier  interpretation 
of  Christianity,  made  by  a  people  in  the  full  maturity 
of  their  intellectual  powers,  whose  reason  had  been 
trained  for  ages  by  a  philosophical  culture  of  the 
highest  order,  and  in  possession  of  a  language  beauti- 
fully adapted  as  a  perfect  vehicle  for  the  expression  of 
the  subtlest  forms  of  human  thought.  They  were  not 
aware  that  this  earlier  interpretation  of  the  Christian 
faith  differed  on  every  essential  point  from  that  which 
they  had  received  from  the  hands  of  the  Latin  church. 
They  did  not  know  that  Christianity,  as  it  had  been 
received  in  the  West,  was  but  a  lower  form  of  the 
truth  adapted  to  a  ruder  apprehension ;  that  it  was  a 
temporary  expedient  in  the  long  range  of  human  de- 
velopment ;  that  the  controlling  principle  in  the  devel- 
opment of  theology,  as  they  had  received  it,  was  its 
adaptation  to  the  necessities  of  a  hierarchical  organi- 
zation. To  them  the  church,  viewed  as  the  Latin  ec- 
clesiastical organization,  was  divine,  the  possessor  of 
absolute  truth,  to  receive  which,  in  unquestioning  as- 
sent, was  the  highest  duty  of  man.  To  bring  such  a 
system  into  accord  with  human  reason,  or  the  con- 
sciousness that  is  in  man,  necessitated  its  retranslat- 
ing back  into  its  higher  and  more  ancient  form,  the 
passing  at  every  point  from  the  outward  to  the  inward. 
But  to  succeed  in  such  a  process  was  to  revolutionize 
theology  —  to  change  the  conceptions  of  the  being  of 
God  and  his  relation  to  the  world,  of  the  incarnation, 


THE  CHURCH  NOT  MEETING   THE  AGE.    207 

of  revelation,  of  the  nature  of  man,  of  the  origin  of 
evil,  of  atonement,  of  the  true  cultus  of  the  spirit,  and 
of  all  that  relates  to  the  last  things  in  human  destiny. 
And  yet  of  such  a  process  the  scholastic  philosophy 
was  the  beginning,  even  though  its  results  were  mainly 
of  a  negative  character.  It  lasted  long  enough  to 
show  that  the  highest  reason  could  not  defend  or  main- 
tain the  tenets  of  Latin  theology  ;  and  in  the  course 
of  its  progi-ess  it  revealed  intimations  of  a  higher 
attitude  toward  truth  which  could  and  did  commend 
itself  not  only  to  the  intellect  but  to  the  Christian 
heart. 

The  first  step  in  such  a  process  was  the  gradual 
revelation  of  the  fact  that  the  church  itself  was  not 
meeting  the  needs  of  humanity.  All  through  the 
twelfth  century  there  went  on  a  series  of  protests 
against  the  church  and  its  teachings  from  almost 
every  part  of  Christendom,  some  of  them  formidable 
in  the  extent  of  their  influence,  others  of  narrow  pro- 
portions, all  of  them  more  or  less  disfigured  by  whim- 
sical fantasies,  by  erroneous  and  even  dangerous  ten- 
dencies, and  yet  all  of  them  connected  by  an  inward 
principle  indicating  their  organic  relationship  to  hu- 
man life,  and  all  of  them  significant  of  the  future 
that  was  to  be.  Such  were  the  Cathari  or  Albigenses 
in  France,  the  Sect  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Petrobru- 
sians,  the  Apostolical  Brethren,  and  the  Waldenses. 
These  movements,  however  diverse  in  aspect,  were  yet 
alike  in  their  aim  to  realize  a  closer  relationship  and 
communion  between  God  and  man,  and  to  seek  for 
God  within  the  soul,  rather  than  at  a  distance  from 
it  without ;  in  their  assertion '  of  the  in-dwelling  pres- 
ence of  a  Spirit  who  was  no  other  than  God-  HimseK, 
of  whom  the  human  body  was  the  abiding  temple,  and 


208        THEOLOGY  IN   THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

not  merely  the  ecclesiastical  edifice ;  in  the  emphasis 
attached  to  the  morality  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
as  concerning  itself  with  the  inward  motives,  and  not 
exclusively,  as  the  current  morality  taught  in  the  con- 
fessional, with  the  outward  act ;  in  the  opposition  to 
rites,  ceremonies,  and  ordinances  as  the  means  of  con- 
veying an  external  grace,  or  of  infusing  virtues  into  the 
soul  from  without ;  in  the  tendency  to  exalt  poverty  as 
a  protest  in  behalf  of  the  native  worth  and  dignity  of 
the  human  soul. 

The  age  in  which  these  movements  originated  (the 
twelfth  century)  was  remarkable  for  its  freedom  as 
well  as  its  range  of  intellectual  activity.  The  freedom 
is  accounted  for  by  the  circumstance  that  the  attention 
of  those  in  authority  was  called  elsewhere.  Absorbed 
as  were  the  popes  with  struggles  of  a  different  charac- 
ter, there  was  little  disposition  or  energy  for  watching 
the  greater  dangers  that  threatened  the  church  from 
an  unknown  and  hitherto  unsuspected  quarter.  The 
church  was  dealing  with  kings,  princes,  and  nobility ; 
it  was  organizing  great  crusades ;  it  was  contending 
for  the  rights  of  the  clergy  against  the  secular  power; 
and,  above  all,  it  had  entered  upon  a  life  and  death 
struggle  with  the  German  emperors,  in  which  no  less 
an  issue  was  at  stake  than  the  civil  supremacy  of  the 
papacy.  The  intellectual  activity  came  by  a  law  of 
its  own  in  the  life  of  peoples,  but  was  greatly  stimu- 
lated by  the  contact  with  Mohammedan  culture  and 
civilization,  whether  in  Spain,  or  in  the  remoter  East, 
where  the  crusades  were  carrying  so  large  a  part  of 
the  population.  It  was  through  Mohammedan  media- 
tion that  the  Latin  church  was  becoming  acquainted 
with  Greek  philosophy,  a  gift  that  could  not  be  re- 
ceived directly  from  the  elder  church,  because  of  the 


ABELARD  AND  FREE  INQUIRY,  209 

hostility  that  had  long  since  resulted  in  a  schism  and 
sundered  all  ecclesiastical  communion. 

In  this  age  of  great  freedom  and  incessant  activ- 
ity, when  the  larger  world  was  first  opening  upon  the 
vision  of  a  hitherto  secluded  and  quiet  life,  the  most 

y/  representative  man  was  Abelard.  He  bears  the  same 
relation  to  formal  theology  that  the  new  sects  which 
are  multiplying  in  Christendom  sustain  to  the  practi- 
cal life  of  the  church.     His  thought  from  beginning 

J  to  end  was  in  revolt  against  the  accepted  principles  of 
Latin  theology.  He  undermined  the  foundations  of 
assent  to  authority,  and  it  was  his  misfortune,  not  his 
fault,  that  he  had  not  the  power  to  substitute  some- 
thing better  in  its  stead.  The  respective  mottoes  of 
Anselm  and  Abelard  have  often  been  put  in  contrast, 
as  if  they  stood  for  diametrically  opposite  methods  of 
inquiry,  and  yet  both  contain  an  element  of  truth. 
The  motto  of  Anselm,  "  I  believe  in  order  that  I  may 
understand,"  —  Credo  ut  intelligam, —  was  equivalent 
to  saying  that  truth  must  have  revealed  its  full  influ- 
ence in  the  life  before  it  can  be  measured  by  the  in- 
tellect. Abelard  reversed  the  motto  of  Anselm,  but 
in  so  doing,  he  had  in  view  the  formal  definitions  of  a 
theology  that  had  not  originated  in  a  living  process  of 
thought,  but  had  been  received  by  tradition  on  exter- 
nal authority,  —  a  tradition  which  commanded  a  merely 
nominal  assent,  and  which  was  maintained  in  the  in- 
terest of  ecclesiastical  order.  When  his  admiring  dis- 
ciples told  him  they  did  not  understand  the  doctrine 
of  the  trinity,  and  that  it  seemed  impossible  to  be- 
lieve, unless  they  understood,  Abelard  assented  to  the 
principle,  and  undertook  to  explain  the  doctrine  to 
their  comprehension.  In  so  doing,  he  was  attempting 
a  task  to  which  he  was  imequal,  and  was  further  mis- 
14 


210        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

taken  in  supposing  that  he  understood  what  he  pro- 
fessed to  explain,  or  that  he  had  fathomed  the  truth 
which  lay  beneath  the  formula.^  His  situation  was  an 
anomalous  one,  where  it  was  necessary  that  the  mind 
should  inquire  and  seek  to  understand,  but  where  it 
must  inevitably  fall  short  of  the  reality  until  illu- 
mined by  a  fuller  light.  His  attempt  was  not  alto- 
gether a  failure,  though  it  might  for  a  time  create 
confusion  of  thought,  and  even  lead  to  erroneous  opin- 
ions. But  it  was  something  that  he  called  attention 
to  the  doctrine  as  a  great  verity  whose  value  would 
be  enhanced  by  its  full  appreciation,  rather  than  a 
mysterious  formula,  the  investigation  of  which  by  the 
reason  was  in  its  nature  irreverent. 

The  work  of  Abelard  finds  its  real  significance  not 
so  much  in  any  immediate  influence  exercised  upon 
his  own  age,  as  in  the  light  thrown  upon  the  work- 
ings of  the  mind  —  the  prophetic  disclosure  of  the 
road  which  future  generations  were  to  travel.  In  his 
treatise  entitled,  "  Scito  te  Ipsum,"  the  words  of  Soc- 
rates when  he  led  the  great  innovation  in  Greek 
philosophy,  it  was  his  aim  to  show  that  sin  lies  in  the 
motive  or  intention,  and  not  in  the  outward  act.  The 
ultimate  effect  of  this  principle,  had  it  been  received, 
would  have  been  to  overthrow  the  whole  mediaeval 
system  of  the  confessional  with  the  abuses  growing  out 
of  penances  commutable  into  money  payments  at  the 
discretion  of  the  priest.  The  outward  act  was  capable 
of  being  easily  estimated  or  graduated  on  a  financial 
scale,  while  to  deal  with  subtle  motives  was  a  thing 
lying  beyond  the  capacity  of  human  confessors.     But 

^  The  tendency  of  his  thought  was  toward  Sabellianism.  See 
Remusat,  Abelard,  sa  Vie,  sa  Philosophie,  et  sa  Theologie,  ii.  p. 


ALARMING  SPREAD   OF  HERESY,         211 

the  confessional,  based  upon  the  view  that  sin  was  a 
transgression  of  an  external  law,  with  its  arbitrary 
division  of  offenses  into  mortal  or  venial,  was  still 
destined  to  remain  and  manifest  its  tendency  to  de- 
grade the  tone  of  morality  before  it  was  rejected  by  an 
enlightened  public  opinion.  The  nature  of  Abelard's 
work,  so  far  in  advance  of  his  age,  was  further  seen  in 
a  treatise  entitled  "  Sic  et  non,"  whose  object  was  to 
show  that  church  tradition,  based  as  it  was  supposed 
upon  the  consensus  of  the  ancient  fathers,  rested  on  an 
unstable  foundation.  The  contradictions  of  the  an- 
cient writers  when  placed  side  by  side  were  evidence 
that  no  such  consensus  existed,  as  had  hitherto  been 
taken  for  granted.  Indeed,  Abelard  might  have  car- 
ried his  contrast  further  if  he  had  possessed  the  requi- 
site knowledge  of  the  materials  at  his  disposition. 

Although  the  twelfth  century  has  been  spoken  of  as 
an  age  of  freedom,  yet  it  was  not  a  freedom  which  had 
been  purchased  by  struggles  and  the  martyrdom  of 
blood.  It  was  a  premature  thing,  destined  to  disap- 
pear as  suddenly  as  it  had  arisen.  Even  in  the  time 
of  Abelard  there  were  signs  of  the  great  ecclesiastical 
reaction  which  half  a  century  later  would  reach  its  full 
dimensions.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  (1091-1153)  and 
others  like  minded  were  becoming  alarmed  at  the 
rapid  spread  of  heretical  opinions,  and  at  the  seeming 
recklessness  of  those  like  Abelard  who  showed  no  re- 
spect for  the  sacred  convictions  of  the  church.  Cause 
enough  for  alarm  indeed  existed.  Within  the  mem- 
ory of  those  still  living  Berengar  had  created  a  pro- 
found sensation  by  denying  the  reality  of  the  miracle 
of  the  altar ;  Roscellin  had  speculated  with  such  dan- 
gerous results  about  the  trinity  as  to  fall  into  trithe- 
ism,  and  his  adherents  still  existed ;  Abelard  and  Gil- 


212        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

bert  de  la  Porree  continued  to  exercise  their  dialectic 
upon  the  most  sacred  of  mysteries ;  undisguised  pan- 
theism had  appeared  among  the  sect  of  the  Free  Spirit, 
and  was  spreading  everywhere  in  the  highest  circles 
under  the  influence  of  Averrhoes'  philosophy;  an  al- 
most Manichaean  dualism  was  taught  among  the  Cath- 
ari ;  rites  and  ceremonies  were  being  set  at  naught, 
the  priesthood  inveighed  against,  and,  generally,  a 
tendency  was  evident  to  break  away  from  the  author- 
ity and  discipline  of  the  church.  It  was  also  well 
known  that  the  contagion  of  Abelard's  influence  had 
been  felt  by  high  dignitaries  in  close  relationship  to 
the  Roman  see. 

The  condemnation  of  Abelard,  which  was  secured 
by  the  influence  of  the  saintly  Bernard  of  Clair vaux, 
was  the  first  indication  of  the  rising  ecclesiastical  reac- 
tion. It  shows  how  ill-prepared  was  the  age  for  the 
deadly  conflict  of  truth  against  authority  that  Abelard 
retreated,  at  the  most  critical  moment  in  his  career, 
from  his  vantage-ground  in  the  conscience,  and  ap- 
pealed to  the  pope  for  his  vindication.  In  one  sense, 
it  is  true,  there  was  deep  meaning  in  the  appeal ;  it 
was  one  of  those  tests  applied  to  the  papacy  by  which 
its  inadequacy  to  its  position  was  to  be  fully  revealed 
to  all  thoughtful  men.  The  principle  of  the  reaction 
lay  in  the  desire  to  maintain  order  and  unity  against 
the  growing  confusion  which  sprang  from  the  unac- 
customed use  of  the  reason.  When  the  popes  were 
free  to  turn  their  attention  to  the  dangers  threatening 
the  church  from  within,  the  work  of  subjugating  the 
reason  went  on  apace.  Toward  the  close  of  the  twelfth 
century  the  "  Holy  See  "  instituted  a  crusade  for  the 
complete  annihilation  of  the  Cathari ;  the  work  of  de- 
struction, as  it  went  on,  included  all  who  dissented 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  REACTION.         213 

from  received  traditioDS  and  usages ;  no  difference  was 
made  between  the  heretical  sects,  for  their  greatest 
guilt  was  common  to  them  all  —  the  assertion  of  the 
reason  against  authority;  and  all  alike,  Waldenses, 
Arnoldists,  Petrobrusians,  disciples  of  Amalric  and 
Apostolic  Brethren,  vanished,  or  seemed  to  do  so,  be- 
fore the  invading  hosts  of  the  militant  church.  Strin- 
gent laws  were  enacted  by  which  heresy  could  be  de- 
tected and  punished  wherever  it  appeared,  and  of 
these,  the  bishops  were  appointed  the  executors. 
There  were  some  who  believed  in  the  efficacy  of 
preaching  as  a  means  of  conversion  from  heresy ;  but 
a  stronger,  more  quickly  available  engine  was  discov- 
ered in  the  inquisition,  which  was  soon  to  be  organized 
for  the  purpose  of  ferreting  out  heresy  in  its  most  se- 
cret recesses.  In  the  year  1215,  an  imposing  General 
Council  assembled,  which  for  the  first  time  formally 
declared  it  to  be  the  dogma  of  the  church  that  the 
bread  and  wine  in  the  Eucharist  were  miraculously 
transubstantiated  into  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ. 
The  leaders  of  the  reaction  were  far-seeing  men,  aware 
that  the  growing  reason  was  fed  by  the  direct  access 
to  the  Scriptures ;  and  in  order  to  extirpate  heresy  by 
the  root,  the  influential  Council  of  Toulouse  in  1229 
declared  it  a  sin  for  the  laity  to  be  found  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  Bible,  or  to  read  even  the  Psalter  or  the 
Breviary  in  the  vernacular.^     ' 

1  Labbe,  Concilia,  torn.  xiii.  p.  1239.  "  Ne  laici  habeant  libros 
scripturse,  prseter  psalterium  et  Divinum  officium  ;  at  eos  libros 
ne  habeant  in  vulgari  lingua." 


214         THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES, 


The  severe  measures  taken  for  the  repression  of 
heresy  may  have  had  the  effect  of  making  the  students 
of  dialectics  more  cautious  in  their  treatment  of  the 
dogmas  of  the  church.  The  tendency  to  speculation 
had  been  so  far  checked  that  Mysticism  seemed  for  a 
while  to  have  taken  its  place,  and  contemplation  to 
have  been  regarded  as  a  better  method  than  intellectual 
analysis  for  gaining  an  insight  into  the  deeper  things 
of  the  Christian  faith.  At  this  juncture  of  intellect- 
ual depression,  it  was  a  fortunate  thing  that  Peter  the 
Lombard  was  able  to  execute  successfully  the  delicate 
task  of  interpreting  the  consciousness  of  the  mediaeval 
church,  and  to  express  in  his  "  Book  of  Sentences  " 
those  opinions  regarding  Christian  truth  which  were 
most  in  accordance  with  the  mind  of  the  age,  and 
most  in  harmony  with  its  ecclesiastical  institutions. 
The  "  Book  of  Sentences  "  met  with  a  wonderful  suc- 
cess; it  became  the  standard  of  orthodoxy,  and  was 
stamped  with  the  formal  approval  of  the  church  in  the 
great  council  of  1215,  the  most  important  synod  which 
had  yet  been  held  in  the  Latin  church.  It  now  be- 
came possible  for  those  who  wished  to  be  orthodox  to 
use  their  reason  within  the  limits  marked  out  by  the 
church,  without  fear  of  transgressing  those  limits 
through  ignorance  of  what  the  church  intended  to 
teach. 

But  although  the  church  Seemed  to  have  been  suc- 
cessful in  banishing  heresy,  there  still  remained  the 
unsettled  question  concerning  the  relation  between 
reason  and  faith,  out  of  which  had  grown  the  free 
thought  and  liberalism  of  the  twelfth  century.  To 
fldjudicate   this   issue,  or  to  make  some  compromise 


TRANSITION  FROM  PLATO  TO  ARISTOTLE.    215 

with  the  human  reason,  was  the  task  of  theology  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  and  until  this  was  done  the  great 
ecclesiastical  reaction  was  not  complete.  The  theolo- 
gian who  accomplished  this  pecidiar  work  for  his  age 
was  Thomas  Aquinas  (1227-1274).  In  order  to  ap- 
preciate his  peculiar  place  in  the  history  of  theology, 
it  is  necessary  to  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  inner 
history  of  Scholasticism  from  the  time  of  Anselm. 

The  doctrine  of  "  universals,"  as  it  is  called,  or  the 
conflict  between  nominalism  and  realism,  important  as 
it  was  in  the  history  of  mediaeval  theology,  should  not 
be  allowed  to  obscure  another  issue  of  deeper  impor- 
tance, —  the  transition  which  took  place  from  Plato- 
nism  to  Aristotelianism  as  the  basis  of  Latin  theology.^ 
The  earlier  Scholastic  theologians  had  been  Platonists. 
The  impetus  given  by  John  Scotus  Erigena  to  the 
thought  of  Plato  was  seen  after  a  lapse  of  two  centu- 
ries to  be  still  working  in  the  mind  of  Anselm,  though 
he  may  have  been  primarily  indebted  for  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  Platonic  philosophy  to  the  encyclopaedic 
works  of  Augustine,  in  which  was  contained  sufficient 
information  regarding  it  —  which  Augustine  had 
fortunately  not  retracted  —  to  enable  an  independent 
thinker  to  work  out  for  himself  its  relation  to  Chris- 
tian thought.  The  same  was  true  of  Abelard,  whose 
knowledge  of  Greek  philosophy  was  confined  chiefly 
to  Plato,  and  whose  acquaintance  with  Aristotle  ex- 
tended only  to  his  small  treatise  upon  logic.  The  study 
of  Plato  in  the  Middle  Ages  seems  to  have  been  asso- 

^  Realism  underlay  the  Greek  theology,  and  was  part  of  its 
inheritance  from  Plato,  from  whom  also  Augustine  inherited  it, 
transmitting  it  in  a  debased  form  to  the  mediaeval  church.  The 
question  in  historical  theology  is,  what  is  the  true  realism  upon 
which  the  highest  Christian  thought  is  based. 


216        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

ciated  not  only  with  an  exalted  estimate  of  the  powers 
of  the  human  reason,  but  to  have  led  to  a  skepticism 
regarding  the  dogmas  of  the  Latin  church,  —  a  result 
which  was  natural  enough,  inasmuch  as  Augustine 
had  given  shape  to  those  dogmas  only  after  his  aban- 
donment of  philosophy  in  the  interest  of  ecclesiastical 
authority.  But  there  was  still  another  result  from 
this  alliance  between  Scholasticism  and  Plato,  —  a 
modification  in  the  conception  of  Deity  which  was  so 
totally  foreign  to  the  prevailing  Latin  idea,  that  it 
was  felt  instinctively,  especially  in  its  grosser  mani- 
festations, to  be  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the  spirit 
and  aim  of  Latin  Christianity.  The  pantheism  of  the 
twelfth  century  as  seen  in  Amalric  of  Bena,  David  of 
Dinanto,  and  Simon  of  Tournay,  and  in  its  popular 
forms  among  the  "  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit,"  may 
have  been  partly  owing  to  a  natural  reaction  from  the 
growing  importance  attached  by  the  church  to  the 
localization  of  Clirist  in  the  Eucharist.  But  this  mod- 
ification in  the  thought  about  God,  which  in  its  higher 
form  was  a  return  to  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  imma- 
nence, was  also  connected  with  the  influence  of  Plato- 
nism ;  it  appeared  in  John  Scotus,  and  has  been  traced 
even  in  the  speculations  of  Anselm.^ 

^  It  has  often  been  remarked  that  the  Scholastic  realism  was 
but  a  step  removed  from  what  is  commonly  called  pantheism. 
Even  Anselm's  famous  argument  for  the  existence  of  God  is  not 
free  from  a  suspicion  of  the  same  tendency.  That  the  mind  has 
a  necessary  idea  of  a  perfect  being,  and  that  therefore  such  a 
being  exists,  was  a  method  of  proof  accepted  not  only  by  Des- 
cartes, but  by  Spinoza  and  Malebranche.  It  was  the  opinion  of 
Hegel  also  that  with  a  slight  modification,  which  would  bring  out 
more  clearly  the  idea  in  Anselm's  mind,  this  so-called  a-priori 
demonstration  of  the  existence  of  God  was  a  strong  statement  of 
the  truth  that  because  God  in-dwells  in  the  reason,  therefore  the 


TENDENCY  OF  PLATO   TO  RATIONALISM.     217 

That  the  tendency  of  Platonism,  rightly  understood, 
was  not  toward  the  doctrine  of  the  immanence  of  God 
is  evident  from  the  whole  purpose  of  his  philosophy. 
But  the  so-called  Platonism  of  the  Middle  Ages  was 
that  religious  interpretation  of  Plato's  thought  by  the 
school  of  Alexandria  which  had  attempted  to  reconcile 
his  teaching  with  a  certain  leaven  of  Stoic  influence. 
For  this  reason  it  was  necessary  that  Scholastic  theol- 
ogy should  abandon  Plato,  if  the  cardinal  tenet  of 
Latin  Christianity  was  to  be  maintained,  —  the  doc- 
trine of  the  transcendence  of  Deity  and  His  isolation 
from  the  world.  For  this  reason  it  turned  by  a  true 
instinct  to  Aristotle,  who  like  Plato  believed  in  a 
Deity  outside  the  frame-work  of  the  universe,  but  un- 
like Plato  had  not  been  mixed  up  with  religious  specu- 
lations foreign  to  his  system  or  obscuring  its  leading 
idea.  There  were  other  reasons,  also,  why  Aristotle 
should  have  supplanted  Plato  in  the  affections  of  the 
School-men.  The  tendency  of  the  study  of  Plato  in 
every  age  of  its  revival,  has  been  to  what  is  called 
rationalism,  —  to  a  dissatisfaction  with  things  as  they 
are  and  a  desire  to  attain  some  ideal  vision  of  beauty 
and  perfection,  the  type  of  which  abides  in  its  purity 

necessary  idea  in  the  mind  concerning  God  corresponds  with  the 
reality.  See  Remiisat,  Saint  Anselme,  p.  469.  "  Anselme  est  nu 
Saint.  Son  orthodoxie  ne  fait  pas  question.  II  est  reste  une 
autorite  dans  les  ^eoles  de  theologie  :  et  pourtant  nous  avons 
irouve  dans  ses  ecrits  quelques  traces  de  Vinjluence  de  la  phUosophie 
d* Alexandrie.  Nous  voyons  une  influence  analogue  se  continuer 
dans  une  partie  du  cartesianisme  qui  a  doun^  pretexte  k  Spinoza, 
et  le  tout  est  venu  aboutir  aux  eloges  de  Hegel  et  de  M.  de 
Schelling." 

The  great  Scholastic  theologians  of  the  thirteenth  century 
abandoned  the  a-priori  method  and  adopted  the  a-posteriori  as 
the  only  safe  ground  on  which  to  maintain  the  existence  of  God.  , 


218   THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

in  God.  Aristotle  on  the  other  hand,  whether  justly 
or  not,  has  always  stood  for  that  conservatism  which 
maintains  things  as  they  are  to  be  divine.  To  Platonic 
idealism,  the  world  as  it  is  is  unsatisfactory,  and 
Plato  forever  points  away  to  a  world  where  things 
correspond  to  the  perfection  of  their  original  divine 
idea.  Aristotle  sought  to  redeem  the  world  from  the 
neglect  into  which  such  an  attitude  would  lead,  and 
the  importance  which  he  gave  to  the  physical  sciences 
is  in  reality  the  practical  mark  which  distinguishes  his 
philosophy  from  Plato.  When  such  a  tendency  ap- 
peared in  the  Middle  Ages,  viz.  :  to  combat  an  ideal 
rationalism  in  the  interest  of  existing  institutions,  it 
would  practically  appear  as  the  application  of  Aris- 
totle to  that  which  was  most  prominent  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  Christendom.  The  church  was  the  one 
institution  that  seemed  to  belong  to  the  eternal  order 
of  things.  As  it  then  existed,  it  had  been  existing  for 
ages  ;  its  long  continuance  and  power  stamped  it  as 
the  clear  expression  of  the  mind  and  will  of  God.  For 
this  reasQji,  the  alliance  of  Scholastic  theology  with 
Aristotle  seemed  to  place  the  great  ecclesiastical  reac- 
tion of  the  thirteenth  century  upon  a  stable  basis  in 
philosophical  thought. 

And,  still  further,  if  there  was  to  be  any  adjustment 
of  the  great  issue  between  reason  and  faith,  it  was 
necessary  that  some  authority  should  be  placed  over 
the  reason,  as  there  was  already  an  authority  for  faith, 
—  there  must  be  a  pope  in  philosophy  as  well  as  in 
theology.  Hitherto,  in  the  intellectual  awakening  of 
the  twelfth  century,  the  reason  had  seemed  to  flounder 
aimlessly  about,  producing  as  many  differences  of 
opinion  as  there  were  individual  thinkers.  Such  di- 
varication and  confusion  was  in  its  very  nature  obnox- 


ARISTOTLE  A  STANDARD  FOR  REASON.  219 

ious  to  the  spirit  of  Latin  Christianity  and  defeated 
its  essential  aim.  The  church,  therefore,  set  up  a 
standard  for  the  human  reason,  and  henceforth  the  ob- 
ject of  the  Scholastic  theology  was  not  to  reconcile  its 
dogmas  with  reason,  but  with  the  Aristotelian  philoso- 
phy. From  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
when  the  complete  works  of  Aristotle  were  for  the 
first  time  available  in  Latin  translations,  the  Scholas- 
tic theologians^  began  their  twofold  line  of  commen- 
taries, on  Aristotle's  philosophy  and  on  Lombard's!  i 
sentences.  Thus  the  triumph  which  the  church  had 
celebrated  over  the  hostile  attacks  of  the  reason  was 
believed  to  be  rendered  secure  by  the  great  knights  of 
theology,  who  rode  forth  in  its  defense  invulnerable 
to  every  assault  in  the  double  armor  with  which  they 
were  invested. 

This  adoption  of  Aristotle  as  the  ally  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith  has  been  often  regarded  as  one  of  those  dis- 
plays of  an  almost  supernatural  intuition  by  which  the 
Latin  church  has  been  guided  throughout  its  history. 
Certainly  it  was  an  expedient  well  calculated  to  meet 
the  exigencies  of  the  hour.  But  Aristotle  concealed 
hidden  dangers  for  the  faith  which  were  not  seen  at 
the  time,  or  if  they  were  it  was  thought  they  might 
be  overcome.  It  is  one  among  the  many  variations 
of  Romanism,  as  it  has  sought  to  adapt  itself  to  the 
changes  which  life  always  involves,  that  at  first  Aris- 
totle was  suspected  of  being  the  subtle  cause  of  the 
pantheism  which  was  so  extensively  diffused  in  the 
last  half  of  the  twelfth  century .^     His  name,  it  was 

*  Alexander  of  Hales  (ob.  1245)  and  Albert  the  Great  (ob. 
1280)  were  the  first  authorities  for  this  combination. 

2  The  physical  and  metaphysical  writings  of  Aristotle  were 
condemned  at  a  synod  held  in  Paris  in  the  year  1209.  Cf.  LaJbb^ 
Concilia^  tom.  xiii.  p.  805. 


220        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

well  known,  was  in  great  repute  with  the  Moham- 
medans, and  the  tendency  which  he  stimulated  to  cul- 
tivate the  study  of  outward  nature  was  thought  to  be 
almost  as  dangerous  to  the  faith  as  the  disposition  to 
confound  God  with  the  world.  From  the  time  of  Aris- 
totle almost  to  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  nature 
remained  a  sealed  book.  There  had  come  a  revival 
for  Plato  in  the  early  Christian  centuries,  but  none 
for  his  successor.  The  world  had  lost  its  interest  in 
the  study  of  nature,  and  was  preoccupied  with  spiritual 
and  moral  themes.  Christian  theology  had  held  the 
field  to  itself  from  the  time  of  Athanasius  and  Augus- 
tine, and  no  rival  disputed  its  claims  to  be  the  one 
all-important,  all-absorbing  pursuit.  Outward  nature 
was  not  only  rejected ;  it  had  fallen  into  contempt,  as 
unworthy  the  attention  of  spiritual  men.  Like  the 
human  body,  which  the  ascetics  despised  and  mal- 
treated, the  outer  world  was  a  temporary  prison  house 
of  the  soul,  originating  out  of  nothing  and  destined  to 
return  to  the  non-existence  from  which  it  came.  Just 
as  fasting  became  a  law  of  spiritual  growth,  and  the 
nearer  man  could  come  to  the  condition  of  a  disem- 
bodied spirit  by  denying  the  claims  of  the  body  to 
shelter,  food,  or  clothing,  the  surer  was  his  prospect 
of  salvation ;  so  also  outward  nature  was  believed  to 
have  no  inner  relationship  to  the  human  spirit ;  it  was 
an  evil  thing,  resting  under  the  curse  of  God  since 
Adam's  fall.  It  was  not  in  this  world  that  the  king- 
dom of  God  was  to  come,  but  in  some  other  distant 
world,  and  the  gaze  of  humanity  was,  like  the  cathe- 
drals which  symbolized  its  attitude,  away  from  earth 
to  heaven.  From  the  time  when  Augustine  fixed  the 
dogma  of  original  sin  as  the  controlling  principle  in 
psychology   as   well   as   in  theology,  mankind   stood 


DANGERS  IN  A  NEW  DIRECTION.       221 

alone  in  its  isolation,  apart  from  nature  on  the  one 
hand,  and  apart  from  God  on  the  other.  In  all  this 
there  was  a  great  j)urpose  to  be  achieved  in  the  di- 
vine economy.  It  was  necessary  that,  through  the 
long-continued  cultus  of  the  immortal  spirit  as  the  ex- 
clusive object  of  human  interest  and  attention,  man 
shoidd  come  to  the  consciousness  of  himself  and  should 
realize,  as  it  had  never  been  realized  before,  that  he 
was  not  a  part  of  nature  or  identified  whoUy  with  its 
life,  but  distinct  from  it  as  something  higher  and  with 
a  higher  destiny.  The  old  nature  religions,  against 
which  Latin  Christianity  had  been  from  the  first  a 
sturdy  protest,  merged  God  in  humanity  and  human- 
ity in  the  life  of  nature.  It  had  been  the  work  of 
the  Latin  church  and  hitherto  its  mission,  to  sharply 
draw  the  lines  between  them ;  to  carry  God  to  a  dis- 
tance on  the  one  hand,  and  as  far  as  possible  annihi- 
late all  communion  mth  nature  on  the  other.^ 

From  the  time  of  the  introduction  of  Aristotle's 
physical  studies  to  the  West,  there  had  begun  to  be 
manifested  an  interest  in  the  outer  world  and  its  phe- 
nomena, which  was  the  harbinger  of  an  impending 
revolution  in  the  distant  future.  It  was  evident  that 
the  mysterious  relationship  which  man  holds  by  a  law 
of  the  creation  to  the  external  world  could  no  longer 
be  overlooked,  nor  could  its  study  much  longer  be  de- 
ferred as  a  dangerous  pursuit  carried  on  by  an  un- 
earthly compact  with   the   spirit   of   darkness.     The 

^  "  In  history  the  divine  element  lies  hid  ;  is  missed  at  the 
time,  even  by  those  who  are  its  vehicle  ;  and  does  not  parade 
itself  in  what  they  consciously  design,  but  lurks  in  what  they  un- 
consciously execute.  It  comes  forth  at  the  end  of  the  ag^s, — 
the  retrospect  of  many  generations  instead  of  the  foresight  of 
one."  —  Martineau,  Studies  of  Christianity,  p.  292. 


222        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

sentiment  of  distrust  in  regard  to  Aristotle's  influence 
whicli  at  first  prevailed  was  in  some  respects  wiser,  so 
far  as  the  interests  of  Latin  Christianity  were  con- 
cerned, than  the  second  sober  thought  which  placed 
him  as  sovereign  over  the  reason.  For  the  Latin 
church  was  still  true  to  its  original  purpose,  and  had 
these  two  distinct  objects  to  maintain  as  essential  "to 
its  existence  and  the  fulfillment  of  its  mission  —  on 
the  one  hand  to  hold  humanity  distinct  and  separate 
from  God,  and  on  the  other  to  insist  upon  a  like  sepa- 
ration between  man  and  the  world  of  outward  nature. 
The  difficulty  was  to  conjoin  the  two  purposes  with 
equal  success.  Monasticism  or  asceticism,  which  flour- 
ished under  the  first  line  of  Scholastic  theologians 
with  whom  Plato  had  been  the  authority,  could  not 
long  continue  to  thrive  under  the  sovereignty  of  Aris- 
totle. The  "  spirit  in  the  air"  in  the  beginning  of  the 
thirteenth  century  was  felt  in  the  monastic  ranks,  and 
gave  rise  to  two  new  orders,  the  Franciscan  and  the 
Dominican,  which  mark  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  as- 
ceticism. Both  orders  showed  a  peculiar  susceptibility 
to  the  changes  which  were  taking  place  in  the  environ- 
ment of  human  life.  While  they  endeavored  to  inten- 
sify in  their  practice  the  ascetic  principle,  and  to  all 
outward  appearance  seemed  to  embody  the  spirit  of 
the  great  ecclesiastical  reaction,  with  whose  triumph 
their  rise  coincides,  yet  they  sustained  a  very  different 
relation  to  the  world  from  the  orders  of  the  Bene- 
dictine family  of  monks.  The  principle  of  seclusion 
was  modified,  or  practically  abandoned,  which  tied 
each  monk  to  his  domicile ;  Franciscans  and  Domini- 
cans went  forth  into  the  larger  world  where  they  could 
not  avoid  the  influences  which  were  undermining  the 
institutions  of  ascetism.     Such  were  the  dangers  for 


THOMAS  AQUINAS.  223 

wluch  no  mode  of  escape  had  been  provided  when 
Aristotle  was  approved  by  the  church  as  the  guide 
of  the  human  reason.  If  the  outer  world  should  come 
to  be  regarded  as  sacred,  and  man  were  to  be  allowed 
to  feel  at  home  within  it  as  the  work  of  God  which 
was  very  good  —  and  to  such  a  result  the  philosophy 
of  Aristotle  must  tend  —  then  it  was  all  over,  not 
only  with  monasticism  and  its  ascetic  observances,  but 
the  church  itself,  as  an  ark  of  deliverance  from  the 
miseries  of  this  evil  world,  was  likewise  eventually 
doomed  to  succumb  to  some  higher  conception  of  the 
nature  of  Christian  redemption. 

The  greatness  of  Thomas  Aquinas  as  a  theologian 
has  been  universally  admitted,  though  the  grounds 
upon  which  his  distinction  rests  have  not  always  been 
clearly  discerned.  While  his  sensitive  spirit  was  sus- 
ceptible to  every  living  impulse  that  stirred  his  age, 
he  saw  with  peculiar  directness  the  dangers  that 
threatened  the  church,  and  saw  also,  or  thought  he 
did,  how  the  danger  was  to  be  averted.  To  him 
mainly  it  was  owing  that  Aristotle  assumed  his  sway 
over  the  reason,  becoming  in  the  sphere  of  the  natural ' 
life  a  precursor  of  Clirist,  as  John  the  Baptist  had 
been  in  the  sphere  of  the  spiritual. 

Aquinas  also  applied  the  corrective  to  that  tendency 
in  Aristotle's  philosophy,  which,  if  not  checked,  might 
lead  to  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  the  importance  of 
the  physical  sciences,  —  to  the  sanctity  of  the  outer 
world  as  diminishing  the  sanctity  of  the  church.  To 
this  end  he  drew  his  famous  distinction  between  the 
kingdom  of  nature  and  the  kingdom  of  grace,^  a  dis- 

^  This  distinction  between  the  kingdoms  of  nature  and  of  grace 
had  been  first  made  by  Albertus  Magnus,  of  whom  Aquinas  was 


224        THEOLOGY  IN   THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

tinction  which  he  carried  out  in  every  direction  and 
applied  to  every  interest  of  human  life.  He  accepted 
at  once  the  fact  of  a  kingdom  of  nature,  and  though  he 
had  not  interrogated  nature  for  himself,  but  had  done 
so  with  Aristotle's  eyes,  yet  he  recognized  and  defined 
what  he  regarded  as  its  proper  sphere.  It  was  a  graded 
kingdom,  with  a  hierarchy  proceeding  upwards  from 
the  lowest  grades  of  life  till  it  reached  its  crown  and 
completion  in  man.  But  over  against  this  kingdom, 
and  above  it,  resting  upon  it  indeed,  as  the  spirit  de- 
pends upon  the  body,  towered  the  kingdom  of  grace,  of 
which  the  church  is  the  external  embodiment.  Like 
all  his  illustrious  predecessors  in  Latin  Christendom, 
he  simply  assumed  the  existence  of  the  church  as 
a  hierarchy,  which,  proceeding  upwards  through  the 
grades  of  clergy  to  the  vicar  of  Christ  on  earth,  found 
its  continuation  in  angels  and  archangels,  and  its  cul- 
mination in  the  throne  of  God.  These  two  kingdoms 
of  nature  and  grace  are  everywhere  distinct  from 
each  other ;  the  lower  does  not  pass  over  into  the 
higher,  but  is  separated  from  it,  as  if  it  were  simply 
its  outer  vestibule.     The  only  door  which  opens  from 

the  pupil.  Cf .  Ritter,  Die  Christliche  Philosophies  p.  640.  It  be- 
longs to  Aquinas,  in  so  far  as  he  appropriated  it,  and  because  his 
reputation  in  the  church  eclipsed  that  of  his  teacher.  Haureau 
has  remarked  upon  the  relation  between  the  two  :  "  Les  juge- 
ments  de  la  postdrite  ne  sont  pas  tou jours  equitables.  EUe  devait 
un  eclatant  hommage  au  g^nie  de  Saint  Thomas,  mais  elle  a 
manque  de  justice  lorsqu'elle  a  donne  son  nom  A  la  doctrine  de 
I'ecole  dominicaine:  cette  doctrine  est  I'ceuvre  d'Albert-le-Grand. 
.  .  .  Ayant  done  protests  contre  I'injure  faite  d,  la  memoire 
d'Albert-le-Grand,  reconnaissons  que  Saint  Thomas  a  consider- 
ablement  ddveloppd  le  systfeme  de  son  maitre  et  I'a  revetu  de 
cette  forme  solonelle,  doctrinale,  sous  laquelle  il  est  parvenu 
jusqu'd  nous.**  —  De  la  Philosophie  Scdastique,  ii.  p.  104. 


KINGDOMS  OF  NATURE  AND   GRACE.     225 

the  lower  into  the  higher  is  the  sacrament  of  bap- 
tism, where  the  natural  man,  who  has  received  a 
natural  life  at  birth,  receives  a  supernatural  gift 
which  constitutes  his  birth  into  the  kingdom  of  grace. 
In  the  life  of  humanity,  considered  as  belonging  to 
these  separate  kingdoms,  there  was  a  twofold  mani- 
festation, represented  by  the  secular  affairs  of  the 
state  or  the  empire  on  the  one  hand,  with  the  em- 
peror at  its  head,  and  by  the  church  or  sphere  of 
spiritual  things  on  the  other  hand,  where  reigns  a 
higher  potentate,  —  the  pope  as  the  vicar  of  Christ. 
There  were  the  natural  virtues  capable  of  being  ac- 
quired by  unaided  efforts,  such  as  the  natural  man 
even  in  heathendom  might  possess,  and  which  have 
their  reward  in  conducing  to  a  natural  happiness ;  and 
there  were  the  supernatural  virtues  infused  into  the 
soul  by  sacramental  grace,  which  have  also  their  re- 
ward in  conducting  to  supernatural  bliss.  There  was 
also  a  natural  theology  whose  contents  might  be  read 
or  demonstrated  by  the  natural  reason,  —  such  as  the 
existence  of  God,  the  creation  of  the  world,  and  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul.  So  much  of  a  concession  Aquinas 
was  forced  to  make  in  deference  to  Aristotle  or  the  well- 
known  features  of  Mohammedan  religion.  But  the 
natural  reason  could  not  discern,  nor  could  it  demon- 
strate to  be  true,  the  contents  of  a  revealed  or  super- 
natural religion  which  must  therefore  be  received  on 
authority.  This  revealed  theology  includes  the  doc- 
trines of  the  incarnation,  the  trinity,  original  sin,  the 
sacraments,  purgatory,  the  final  judgment,  and  end- 
less punishment.  But  because  the  contents  of  natural 
theology  could  have  been  discovered  only  by  a  few, 
they,  too,  are  included  within  the  revelation,  in  order 
to  their  more  general  diffusion.     The  scope,  therefore, 

15 


226        THEOLOGY  IN    THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

of  revealed  theology  as  a  science  becomes  an  all-com- 
prehensive  one,  for  it  treats  of  God  in  all  His  rela- 
tions, whether  to  the  kingdom  of  nature  by  His  power, 
or  to  the  church  by  His  grace. 

Of  such  a  system  it  is  evident  that  if  it  should 
commend  itself  to  the  religious  sentiment  of  the  age, 
it  would  suppress  any  inordinate  or  unhealthy  activity 
in  the  kino'dom  of  nature  which  threatened  the  time- 

o 

honored  supremacy  of  the  kingdom  of  grace.  And, 
indeed,  it  did  more  for  the  church  than  all  the  repres- 
sive measures  which  had  been  devised  to  extirpate 
heresy.  It  was  a  view  easily  conceived  as  a  whole, 
and,  in  all  its  bearings,  it  seemed  rational  and  carried 
conviction  to  the  religious  mind.  So  strong  is  its 
rationality  and  cohesiveness  when  once  its  premises 
have  been  admitted,  that  it  has  ever  since  had  a  ten- 
dency to  reappear  among  those  who  are  leading  the 
way  in  ecclesiastical  reactions.  It  has  the  advantage 
also  of  opening  up  a  field  for  the  activity  of  the 
reason,  so  capacious  that  its  boundaries  are  not  imme- 
diately felt  as  a  hindrance.  For  Aquinas  assumed,  as 
upon  his  principles  he  was  justified  in  doing,  that  the 
revelation  was  not  contrary  to  reason,  but  only  above 
reason,  as  the  kingdom  of  grace  is  above  the  kingdom 
of  nature ;  and  therefore  if  reason  could  allege  objec- 
tions against  revealed  religion,  the  reason  also  was 
competent  to  meet  and  overcome  them.  Thus  was 
afforded  a  large  scope  for  the  dialectic  activity  of  the 
School-men,  without  endangering  the  stability  of  dog- 
matic authority, 
w  The  basis  of  Latin  theology,  as  it  had  existed  from 
the  time  of  TertuUian  or  Augustine,  remained  un- 
changed in  the  system  of  Aquinas.  God  conceived 
as  outside  of  and  remote  from  the  world,  communi- 


'      RELATION  OF  AQUINAS   TO  HIS  AGE.     227 

eating  with  nature  by  His  power  or  with  the  church 
by  His  grace,  was  the  primary  assumption  which  reg- 
ulated and  bound  together  in  harmony  the  tenets  of 
his  theology.  That  body  of  opinions  which,  from  an 
early  period,  had  been  developed  in  the  Latin  church 
in  order  to  maintain  the  economy  of  ecclesiastical 
administration,  these  he  identified  with  the  original 
divine  revelation.  The  episcopate  as  the  continuator 
of  the  apostolate,  in  which,  by  virtue  of  succession, 
inhered  the  gifts  or  deposit  of  truth  and  grace  and 
authority,  —  a  consolidated  body  which  found  in  the 
pope,  as  the  vicar  of  Christ,  its  head,  mouth-piece,  and 
bond  of  unity;  human  nature  as  essentially  foreign 
to  and  incompatible  with  the  divine ;  the  incarnation 
as  an  arbitrary  and  mysterious  arrangement  for  which 
it  was  conceivable  some  substitute  might  have  been 
found ;  revelation  as  the  communication  of  facts  and 
doctrines,  —  a  certain  amount  of  information  for  which 
man  has  no  inward  aptitude  in  the  reason,  the  accept- 
ance of  which  on  the  authority  of  the  episcopate  or 
the  church  constitutes  the  merit  of  faith ;  the  priest- 
hood as  intrusted  with  miraculous  power  through  the 
gi-ace  of  ordination,  offering  a  veritable  sacrifice  which 
had  power  to  take  away  sin,  and  therefore  an  indis- 
pensable mediator  between  God  and  man ;  salvation 
only  through  the  grace  that  comes  by  sacraments; 
transubstantiation,  purgatory,  indulgences,  by  which 
the  church  on  earth  manifests  its  power  over  the  un- 
seen world  and  human  destiny  in  the  future,  —  these 
were  the  dogmas  concerning  the  truth  of  which  it  is 
said  that  Aquinas  never  knew  what  it  was  to  have  a 
doubt,  —  dogmas  which  he  fortified  by  a  clearer  and 
more  positive  enunciation. 

The  theology  of  Aquinas  was  the  development,  in 


228        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

its  full  splendor  and  practical  realization,  of  that 
which  the  Latin  church  had  begun  to  dream  of  from 
its  infancy.  It  marks  the  church  in  the  hour  of  its 
completest  triumph,  when,  after  overcoming  every 
other  power,  it  made,  or  seemed  to  make,  the  con- 
quest of  the  human  reason.  It  holds  the  same  rela- 
tionship to  religious  thought  and  life  in  the  Middle 
Ages  that  Innocent  the  Great  sustained  to  the  polit- 
ical and  ecclesiastical  institutions  of  his  time,  —  it 
reflects  the  consciousness  of  Latin  Christendom  in 
the  century  that  followed  his  reign,  when,  for  nearly 
a  hundred  years,  the  papacy  exercised  an  almost  un- 
disputed supremacy  over  Western  Europe.  As  a  sys- 
tem, it  has  become  a  part  of  the  world's  literature 
through  Dante's  imagination,  and  may  be  still  read 
in  the  "  Divine  Comedy,"  ^  as  it  appeared  to  a  great 
poetic  genius  who  lived  and  died  within  the  inclosure 
of  its  thought. 

But  just  as  there  were  elements  at  work  in  the 
thirteenth  century  which  were  secretly  weakening  the 
foundations  of  papal  authority,  so  that  the  humilia- 
tion of  Boniface  (1294-1303)  by  Philip  the  Fair  of 
France  was  an  event  whose  antecedents  grew  out  of 
the  very  conditions  which  had  seemed  to  secure  papal 
autocracy,  so  there  were  elements  also  in  the  theology 
of  Aquinas  which  were  not  altogether  in  harmony 
with  the  spirit  of  Latin  Christianity,  —  rudiments,  as 
it  were,  of  a  higher  faith  which  could  not  be  brought 
into  subjection  to  the  ruling  idea  of  his  formal  sys- 
tem. 

It  is  probable  that  the  rivalry  between  the  two  great 
orders  of  mendicant  monks   stimulated  Duns  Scotus 

^  For  the  traces  of  Aquinas'  theology  in  Dante,  see  Ozanam, 
Dante  et  la  PhilosopUe  Catholique  au  13""  Siecle. 


CRITICISM  VF  DUNS  SCOTUS.  229 

^  (1265-1308)  in  his  effort  to  find  the  weak  points  in 
the  position  of  the  Angelic  Doctor.  For  Aquinas  had 
lent  great  renown  to  the  Dominican  order,  as  well  as 
gained  the  gratitude  of  the  whole  church  for  the  ser- 
vices he  had  rendered  to  the  faith,  while  the  Francis- 
cans were  as  yet  without  a  representative  theologian. 
It  is  true,  also,  that  the  captious,  hair-splitting  ten- 
dency in  the  dialectics  of  the  School-men  received  a 
great  impetus  from  Duns  Scotus,  which  tended  to 
bring  the  whole  method  into  ridicule.  But  however 
this  may  be,  there  is  no  reason  for  doubting  his  intel- 
lectual sincerity,  although  it  may  still  remain  an 
enigma  by  what  common  principle  the  various  criti- 
cisms which  he  made  upon  the  theology  of  Aquinas 
can  be  included  in  one  consistent  system  of  thought. 

'^  Every  great  thinker  has  been  followed  by  a  Duns  Sco^ 
tus.  Indeed,  it  is  inevitable  in  the  interest  of  free- 
dom and  of  progress  that  the  human  mind  should 
rebel  against  a  system  like  that  of  Aquinas,  which 
definitely  fixed  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  without 
the  need  of  any  further  inquiry,  and  stamped  the 
whole  result  with  the  assumption  of  infallibility. 

To  the  mind  of  Aquinas,  theology  was  a  comprehen- 
sive, universal  science,  embracing  the  whole  range  of 
human  thought  concerning  God,  humanity,  and  the 
world  in  a  system  of  absolute  truth.  Duns  Scotus,  on 
the  other  hand,  regarded  theology  as  practical  wisdom 
for  the  regulation  of  the  life,  dismissing  its  larger  re- 
lationships as  beyond  the  ken  of  human  intelligence. 
The  defect  in  Aquinas'  attitude,  to  his  view,  was  its 
exaggerated  estimate  of  the  importance  of  the  human 
reason.  Hence  he  reduced  the  contents  of  what  Aqui- 
nas called  natural  theology ;  he  admitted  that  the  rea- 
son might  attain  to  the  idea  of  God,  but  the  doctrines 


230        THEOLOGY  IN   THE   MIDDLE  AGES. 

of  the  creation  of  the  world  out  of  nothing,  and  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  were  beliefs  that  reason 
could  not  demonstrate,  and  must  be  relegated  to  the 
sphere  of  revealed  religion.  Aquinas  had  maintained, 
on  the  grounds  of  reason,  that  this  was  the  best  pos- 
sible of  worlds,  but  Duns  Scotus  disputed  that  the 
reason  was  entitled  to  make  such  an  affirmation ;  all 
that  could  be  said  was,  that  it  was  such  a  world  as  it 
had  pleased  God  to  create.  The  doctrine  of  the  atone- 
ment, as  Anselm  had  stated  it,  and  as  the  later  School- 
men generally  received  it,  had  to  Duns  Scotus  no 
foundation  in  nature  or  in  the  fitness  of  things,  —  it 
was  simply  an  arbitrary  arrangement,  the  results  to  be 
accomplished  by  which,  God  might,  had  He  willed, 
have  attained  in  some  other  way.  But  while  thus  ap- 
parently disparaging  the  reason,  and  disowning  any 
such  authority  as  Aristotle  for  its  standard,  he  was  in- 
clined to  assert  an  inward  kinship  between  the  divine 
and  the  human,  which  resembles  the  fundamental  pos- 
tulate of  Greek  theology.  Duns  Scotus  did  not,  there- 
fore, lay  the  same  emphasis  upon  the  doctrine  of  grace, 
nor  did  he  maintain  the  sharp  distinction  between  the 
kingdoms  of  nature  and  of  grace,  but  rather  inclined 
to  lessen  the  difference  between  the  natural  and  the 
supernatural.  Throughout  his  whole  system,  Aquinas 
had,  as  Duns  Scotus  thought,  not  only  exaggerated  the 
power  of  the  reason,  but  he  had  lost  sight  of  the  high 
significance  of  the  will,  whether  in  God  or  man,  or 
had  so  subordinated  the  will  to  the  reason  as  to  weaken 
its  efficiency  or  destroy  its  creative  activity.^     Duns 

^  Le  volontarisme  de  Duns  Scot  est  k  Vintellectualisme  de  Thomas 
(Aquinas)  ce  que  le  Kant  de  la  Critique  de  la  rah^on  pratique  sera 
au  Kant  de  la  Critique  de  la  raison  pure,  et  ce  que  le  panthe'lisme 
de  Schopenhauer  sera  au  panlogisme  de  Hegel.  Weber,  Histoir^ 
de  la  Philosophie  Europeenney  p.  226. 


VARIATIONS   OF  ROMANISM,  231 

Scotus  affirmed  the  freedom  of  the  will,  as  it  is  gen- 
erally said,  after  a  Pelagian  fashion ;  he  denied  the 
doctrine  of  predestination,  which  Aquinas  had  taught 
with  Augustine,  and  asserted  that  the  highest  virtue 
or  merit  in  man  lay  in  the  obedience  which  he  was 
freely  able  to  render  by  the  capacity  of  his  nature. 
Such  a  system  might  seem  to  dispense  with  the  neces- 
sity of  the  church,  but  Duns  Scotus  assigned  to  the 
church  a  higher  prerogative  than  even  Aquinas  had 
done,  if  that  were  possible,  for  his  denial  of  the  claims 
of  the  reason  tended  to  throw  men  back  upon  its  abso- 
lute authority  as  the  only  recipient  of  a  divine  reve- 
lation. 

These  divergencies  between  the  two  master  minds 
who  stood  at  the  close  of  the  papal  dispensation  are 
sufficient  to  reveal  that,  despite  the  efforts  of  Aquinas 
to  regulate  the  reason,  and  to  adjust  its  relation  to  ex- 
ternal authority,  he  had  not  succeeded.  Differences 
like  these  in  the  two  systems  of  theology,  which  from 
this  time  began  to  divide  the  allegiance  of  the  schools, 
show  the  confusion  into  which  mediaeval  thought  had 
fallen,  and  from  which  it  was  powerless  to  extricate 
itself  without  revolutionizing  the  basis  of  Latin  the- 
ology. The  only  point  which  Aquinas  and  Duns  Sco- 
tus held  in  common  was  the  authority  of  the  church  ;  / 
and  this  was  a  bond  which,  while  uniting  them,  was 
also  the  cause  of  the  contradictions  and  confusions 
that  marked  their  thought.  Whatever  they  had  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  or  failed  to  do,  one  thing  had  been 
rendered  clear  by  their  labors,  —  that  Latin  theology  / 
was  dependent  for  its  authority  upon  the  Latin  church, 
and  must  be  subordinated  to  the  end  of  maintaining 
its  undiminished  prestige. 

The  differences  that  have  been  enumerated  between 


232        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES, 

the  systems  of  Aquinas  and  Duns  Scotus,  however 
significant  they  are  in  themselves,  or  as  permissible 
variations  in  Latin  theology,  gain  a  deeper  signifi- 
cance when  we  trace  them  to  their  source  in  the  con- 
flicting ideas  of  God  which  were  entertained  by  these 
two  representative  theologians.^  In  the  theology  of 
Aquinas,  the  will  of  God  is  viewed  as  the  reflection  of 
a  divine  character  or  reason,  which  is,  as  it  were,  the 
groundwork  of  the  divine  being.  With  Duns  Sco- 
tus, there  lies  no  character  behind  the  divine  will  to 
which  it  conforms  ;  the  will  of  God  is  the  ultimate 
factor  in  His  existence,  —  an  absolute,  arbitrary,  uncon- 
ditioned will,  which  is  the  only  ground  of  right.  Ac- 
cording to  Aquinas,  it  is  possible  to  regard  righteous- 
ness or  goodness  as  constituting  the  essence  of  Deity, 
and  to  view  the  divine  will  as  the  necessary  expression 
of  His  moral  nature.  Hence,  righteousness,  as  the 
human  reason  may  discern  it,  becomes  the  law  in  ac- 
cordance with  which  the  universe  is  organized  and  di- 
rected. The  action  of  the  divine  will  does  not  create 
right,  but  is  the  expression  of  a  righteousness  that  lies 
back  of  the  will,  to  which  the  will  must  conform.  All 
this  is  reversed  in  the  thought  of  Duns  Scotus.  The 
will  of  God  is  the  highest,  divinest  quality  in  God,  the 
motive  power  of  all  that  is,  the  only  sanction  which 
gives  validity  to  the  reason.  God  does  not  command 
what  is  good  because  it  is  good,  but  the  good  is  such 
because  He  commands  it. 

^  In  the  question  discussed  by  Aquinas  and  Duns  Scotus, — 
whether  there  was  in  God  a  divine  essence  to  be  distinguished 
from  His  attributes,  —  was  raised  one  of  the  deepest  and  most 
fundamental  issues  in  theology.  A  summary  of  the  discussion  is 
given  in  Morin,  Dictionnaire  de  Philosophie  et  de  Theologie  Scolas^ 
tiquesy  i.  pp.  954  ff. 


CONFLICTING  IDEAS  OF  GOD,  233 

Theories  like  these  may  seem  to  have  no  connection 
with  the  experience  of  life  or  with  our  insight  into  the 
ways  of  God  in  the  world.  But  history  teaches  that 
human  convictions  about  the  nature  of  God,  however 
abstruse  or  speculative  they  may  appear,  do  yet  control 
the  fate  of  races  and  of  institutions.  And  of  these 
two  theories  it  may  be  said  that  they  are  charged  with 
momentous  consequences  for  civilization  as  well  as  re- 
ligion. It  is  only  when  we  look  at  them  in  their  his- 
torical embodiment,  as  they  have  been  lived  out  in  hu- 
man experience,  that  we  are  able  to  try  them  by  more 
tangible  tests  than  the  dialectics  of  metaphysical  sub- 
tlety. 

The  conception  of  God  as  maintained  by  Aquinas 
is  substantially  identical  with  Plato's  "idea  of  the 
good  "  ^  which  had  passed  from  Plato  as  a  ruling  prin- 
ciple into  Greek  theology.  In  Aquinas,  indeed,  it  ap- 
pears but  imperfectly  developed,  and  does  not  have  its 
full  influence  upon  his  thought,  owing  to  the  limita- 
tions of  the  Latin  church  and  the  tenets  which  he 
received  on  its  authority.  But  the  natural  tendency 
of  such  a  conviction,  freely  working  itself  out,  is  to 
elevate  humanity  by  bringing  it  into  closer  relation- 
ship with  God,  by  affirming  in  the  human  constitution 
the  same  essential  relationship  between  the  reason  and 
the  will,  as  it  exists  in  God  :  it  is  a  conviction  which 
ennobles  and  consecrates  the  reason  by  regarding  it  as 
endowed  with  a  constitutional  capacity  for  the  discern- 

^  "  If  it  is  the  Idea  of  the  Good  which  imparts  to  things  their 
Being,  to  intelligence  its  capacity  for  knowledge,  if  it  is  called 
the  source  of  all  truth  and  beauty,  the  parent  of  light,  the  source 
of  reality,  it  is  not  merely  the  end  but  the  ground  of  all  Being, 
efficient  force,  cause  absolute."— Zeller,  Plato  and  the  Old  Acad- 
emy,  p.  282. 


234        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

ment  of  truth  and  righteousness ;  it  emancipates  the 
will  by  viewing  it  as  predetermined,  like  the  divine 
will,  to  execute  the  law  of  its  being  which  is  grounded 
in  right.  In  the  history  of  theology  it  marked  a  crisis  / 
"when  Augustine  practically  abandoned  this  conception 
of  Deity,  and  fell  back  to  the  belief  that  God  was  ab- ) 
solute  will  whose  decree  alone  makes  righteousness, ' 
who  reveals  a  system  of  regulative  information  which 
man  must  receive  on  external  authority,  who  elects  to 
salvation  or  condemns  to  endless  misery  by  arbitrary 
determinations,  to  examine  into  or  to  question  which 
is  presumption  and  impiety.  The  outcome  of  this  be- 
belief,  in  Augustine  or  in  later  Latin  theology,  may 
have  been  modified  by  a  Christian  influence  from 
which  they  could  not  escape ;  but  in  Mohammedanism, 
where  the  principle  is  seen  working  out  unchecked 
its  natural  consequences,  it  resulted  in  a  complete  di- 
vorce between  God  and  humanity,  it  made  the  reason 
powerless,  it  robbed  the  conscience  of  any  inward  im- 
pulse, it  reduced  morality  to  a  slavish  fear,  —  a  cring- 
ing obedience  to  omnipotent  power ;  and  the  fatalism 
which  it  induced  in  religion  when  operating  in  the 
state  deprived  its  civilization  of  those  elements  of  en- 
terprise and  hope  which  make  possible  the  stages  of 
human  progress. 

Of  these  two  ways  of  apprehending  the  being  of 
\  God,  that  of  Duns  Scotus  —  that  He  is  the  uncondi- 
tioned arbitrary  will  —  is  more  in  harmony  with  the 
spirit  of  Latin  Christianity.  This  underlying  belief 
may  be  traced  in  those  ideas  of  the  church  as  consist- 
ing in  the  episcopate,  or  of  the  revelation  as  a  deposit 
intrusted  to  its  charge,  which  were  so  fundamental 
that  they  had  been  the  axioms  of  Latin  Christianity 
from  the  time  of  TertuUian.     The  same  belief  is  al- 


THEIR  ILLUSTRATION  IN  HISTORY.      235 

ways  and  everywhere  the  principle  of  imperialism  or 
despotism  in  church  or  state,  —  the  principle  which  is 
invoked  in  the  call  for  the  "  strong  man "  as  he  ap- 
pears in  history.  When  the  Protestant  Reformation 
brought  great  disasters  to  the  Latin  church  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  Ignatius  Loyola  led  again  an  ecclesi- 
astical revival,  under  the  conviction  that  the  church  as 
it  then  existed,  unreformed  and  unchanged,  was  the 
absolute  expression  of  the  divine  will,  and  that  to 
serve  the  church,  by  whatever  methods,  was  to  contrib- 
ute to  the  greater  glory  of  God.  With  this  convic- 
tion Calvin  arose,  one  might  say  that  with  it  he  seems 
to  have  been  born  —  that  God's  will  must  at  all  haz- 
ards be  made  supreme.  The  existence  and  work  of 
Loyola  made  Calvin  not  only  necessary  but  indispen- 
sable for  the  nascent  Protestantism.  Both  men  were 
building  upon  the  same  foundation  —  the  only  differ- 
ence was  that  Loyola  said  the  divine  will  was  ex- 
pressed in  the  institution  of  the  Latin  church,  while 
Calvin  maintained  that  its  only  expression  was  to  be 
found  in  Scripture.  In  the  long  and  fierce  duel  be- 
tween the  followers  of  these  two  leaders,  it  is  not 
strange  that  the  theology  of  Aquinas  in  the  Roman 
church,  as  well  as  the  Lutheran  type  of  theology  in 
the  Protestant  churches,  should  have  sunk  into  abey- 
ance. The  Jesuits  have  never  had  any  great  respect 
for  Aquinas,  but  have  always  championed  Duns  Scotus 
as  their  favorite  theologian  ;  ^  the  Calvinists  also  have 
regarded  the  Lutheran  theology  as  a  halting,  half- 
hearted attitude,  if  not  a  compromise  between  truth 
and  error. 

^  Most  of  the  literature  upon  Duns  Scotus  belongs  to  the  sev- 
enteenth century  when  the  Jesuits  were  at  the  height  of  their 
activity.  For  a  list  of  works  then  published  cf.  Franck,  Diction- 
naire  des  Sciences  Philosophiques^  ii.  p.  169. 


236        THEOLOGY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

Once  more  in  the  history  of  Christianity,  in  our 
own  age,  an  ecclesiastical  reaction  has  been  and  still 
is  in  progress,  which  is  based  on  the  same  principle 
that  inspired  Augustine  or  Loyola.  To  the  mind  of  a 
writer  like  De  Maistre,  seeking  to  impose  again  on 
the  modern  world  the  authority  of  an  infallible  pope 
as  the  highest  expression  of  the  will  of  God,  the  theol- 
ogy of  Aquinas,  even  though  illustrated  with  the  bril- 
liancy of  Bossuet's  genius,  seemed  like  shuffling,  vacil- 
lating weakness.  Carlyle,  who  at  heart  remained  as 
he  had  been  born,  a  sturdy  Calvinist,  presents  in  liter- 
ature the  spectacle  of  one  who  finds  no  institution  that 
responds  to  his  ideal ;  everywhere  appears  weakness, 
disorder,  and  confusion,  accompanied  with  shallow  talk 
about  liberty ;  he  bewails  the  absence  of  the  "  strong 
man  "  upon  whose  portrait  in  history  he  gazed  with 
fascinated  vision,  whose  coming  he  invoked  as  the  one 
crying  need  of  the  time. 

These  illustrations  may  serve  to  show  that  what 
seem  to  be  subtle  theological  distinctions  are  yet 
closely  connected  with  the  life  and  experience  of  men. 
The  aim  of  the  present  occupant  of  the  papal  see  to 
reinstate  Aquinas  in  his  former  prestige,  if  it  has  any 
significance  at  all,  indicates  a  purpose  to  overcome 
Jesuit  influence,  and  to  put  the  church,  as  far  as  is  al- 
lowable, in  harmony  with  the  reason.  For  this  pur- 
pose it  may  be  that  no  better  instrument  could  have 
been  chosen  than  the  revival  of  the  study  of  Aquinas.-^ 

^  For  a  criticism  on  the  significance  and  probable  results  of  this 
modern  attempt  to  revive  the  study  of  Aquinas'  philosophy,  see 
an  article  entitled  Philosophy  in  the  Roman  Church,  by  Thomas 
Davidson,  in  Fortnightly  Review,  July,  1882.  The  author  is  right 
in  maintaining  that  Aquinas  is  hopelessly  out  of  sympathy  with 
what  is  highest  and  best  in  modern  thought.     But  it  is  not  the 


MODERN  REVIVAL   OF  AQUINAS,         237 

It  even  constitutes  a  ground  of  hope  that  the  renewed 
interest  in  his  writings  and  their  deeper  perusal  may- 
yet  lead  Latin  theologians  to  discover,  that  while  he 
represents  a  past  when  the  Latin  church  was  in  the 
noontide  of  its  glory,  he  was  also  in  some  respects  the 
prophet,  though  unconsciously  to  himseK,  of  a  larger 
and  higher  because  more  spiritual  and  more  rational 
dispensation.^ 

system  of  Aquinas,  but  the  inconsistencies  and  contradictions  in 
his  theology,  which  may  render  its  renewed  study  a  means  of 
profit  and  of  advance. 

1  The  best  works  in  English  upon  the  Scholastic  philosophy  are 
Bishop  Hampden's  Bampton  Lectures  for  1832  —  The  ScholastiQ 
Philosophy  in  its  Relation  to  Christian  Theology ;  and  Maurice, 
Mediaeval  Philosophy.  Bishop  Hampden  traced  clearly  the  preva- 
lence of  mediaeval  modes  of  thought  and  expression  in  the  current 
Protestant  theology,  and  in  this  lies  the  special  value  of  his  book. 
Other  works  which  maybe  consulted  are  Haureau,  De  la  Philoso- 
phie  Scolastique ;  Rousselot,  Etudes  sur  la  Philosophie  dans  le 
Moyen  Age ;  Kaulich,  Geschichte  der  Scholastischen  Philosophie; 
Stockl,  Geschichte  der  Philosophie  des  Mittelalters, — all  of  them 
dealing  mainly  with  the  relation  of  scholasticism  to  speculative 
thought.  Ritter,  Die  ChristUche  Philosophie,  is  the  best  exposition 
of  its  relation  to  the  progress  of  religious  thought.  The  most 
elaborate  treatise  on  the  theological  bearings  of  Scholasticism  is 
Morin,  Dictionnaire  de  Philosophie  et  de  Theologie  Scolastiques ; 
but  its  labored  and  voluminous  expositions  lack  an  intellectual 
perspective.  It  professes  to  be  a  dictionary,  but  its  object  is  to 
defend  the  Roman  Catholic  theology.  Of  its  value  there  can  be 
no  doubt.  Among  the  general  histories  of  philosophy  that  of 
Ueberweg  is  the  best. 


THEOLOGY  IN   THE   AGE  OF  THE 
REFORMATION. 


Justificati  ergo  ex  fide,  pacem  habeamus  ad  Deum  per  Dominum  nos- 
trum Jesum  Christum.  —  Rom.  v.  1. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


A.  D. 

1300.  [c]    Occam  teaches  nominalism  at  Faria. 

1309-1377.   Papacy  at  Avignon. 

1324-1384.   Wycliffe. 

1329.  [c  ]   Death  of  Eckart. 

1348-1350.   Pestilence  of  the  Black  Death. 

1361.  [c]    Tauler  died. 

1380-1471.   Thomas  a  Kempis. 

1383.   Wycliffe's  Translation  of  the  Bible. 

1415,    Martyrdom  of  Huss. 

1440.   Discovery  of  the  Art  of  Printing. 

1453.   Fall  of  Constantinople. 

1467-1536.    Erasmus. 

1483-1546.   Martin  Luther. 

1484-1531.  Zwingle. 

1491-1556.    Ignatius  Loyola. 

1497-1568.    Melancthon. 

1498.   Savonarola  died  at  the  stake. 

1509-1564.   Calvin. 

1517.   Posting  of  the  Theses. 

1521.   Diet  of  Worms. 

1529.  Discussion  between  Luther  and  Zwingle 

1545.    Opening  of  the  Council  of  Trent. 

1553.  Servetus  burnt  at  Geneva. 


THEOLOGY  IN  THE  AGE  OF  THE 
KEFORMATION. 


The  period  known  as  the  Middle  Ages  reached  its 
cuLnination  in  the  thirteenth  century.  Up  to  that 
time,  as  it  has  been  said,  there  was  lurking  in  every 
movement  the  spirit  of  a  Hildebrand ;  after  it  every- 
thing pointed  to  a  Luther.  For  two  centuries  before 
the  Reformation,  the  Latin  church  was  slowly  losing 
its  hold  upon  the  reason  and  the  conscience  of  Chris- 
tendom. When  Luther  appeared,  he  only  declared 
the  result  which  had  been  already  accomplished.  The 
decline  of  the  Latin  church  as  an  institution  implied 
the  ultimate  abandonment  of  that  system  of  doctrine 
which  is  known  as  Latin  Christianity.  It  had  been 
from  the  first  an  economizing  of  the  Christian  revela- 
tion in  the  interest  of  an  episcopal  hierarchy,  which 
had  successfully  claimed  the  right  to  teach  and  govern 
the  world  in  the  place  of  Christ.  As  a  system  of 
doctrines,  it  had  been  constructed  in  obedience  to  one 
test,  —  its  fitness  or  utility  for  holding  mankind  in 
subjection  to  an  external  authority.  When  that  au- 
thority was  no  longer  needed,  or  could  be  no  longer 
maintained,  the  system  of  doctrines  which  it  had  up- 
held might  indeed  long  continue  to  survive  through 
the  conservative  force  of  tradition,  or  through  its  lin- 
gering hold  upon  the  imagination ;  but  the  time  must 
come  when  it  would  appear  as  untrue  to  the  divine 

16 


242       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION. 

revelation,  as  a  hindrance  to  the  growth  of  the  human 
spirit. 

The  age  before  the  Reformation  reveals  the  Latin 
church  in  a  state  of  hopeless  decline.  None  of  the 
peculiar  institutions  of  the  Middle  Ages  came  any- 
more to  its  help  against  the  forces  that  were  slowly 
but  surely  compassing  its  downfall.  Monasticism  put 
forth  no  more  fresh  outshoots  full  of  life  and  vigor, 
as  in  the  days  of  Hildebrand  or  Bernard  or  Innocent 
the  Great.  The  old  orders  partook  of  the  general  de- 
cline which  touched  everything  that  the  mediaeval 
spirit  had  inspired.  The  corruptions  that  were  bred 
within  the  cloister  were  an  evidence  that  as  an  insti- 
tution monasticism  had  outlived  its  usefulness,  and 
was  out  of  harmony  with  the  larger  life  of  the  time. 
Scholasticism  also,  which  in  the  days  of  Aquinas  had 
turned  back  the  tide  of  skepticism,  could  no  longer 
avail  itself  of  the  compromise  with  the  reason  which 
the  Angelic  Doctor  had  proclaimed ;  it  not  only  showed 
no  energy  in  defending  the  church's  teaching,  but  in 
order  to  save  philosophy  it  proclaimed  an  absolute 
divorce  between  religion  and  speculative  thought,  leav- 
ing the  church  to  defend  itself  as  best  it  could  without 
the  aid  of  reason.  Most  of  those  who  still  bore  the 
scholastic  mantle  settled  down  to  the  skeptical  con- 
clusion, that  what  was  false  in  philosophy  might  yet 
be  true  in  theology.  At  a  time  when  the  church  most 
needed  every  support  which  could  contribute  to  sus- 
tain its  decaying  strength,  it  was  deserted  by  the  rea- 
son. The  reason  which  had  been  treated  with  distrust 
and  suspicion,  which  the  church  had  sought  to  humil- 
iate as  its  vassal,  was  now  taking  its  revenge. 

As  to  the  papacy,  when  in  the  fourteenth  century  it 
fled  from  Rome  and  took  refuge  in  Avignon,  it  was 


WHY  THE  PAPACY  DECLINED.  243 

seen  as  abandoning  the  rock  from  which  it  had  been 
hewn,  and  the  pit  from  which  it  was  digged.  It  could 
then  be  contemplated  as  a  thing  apart  from  the  mys- 
terious source  of  its  greatness,  and  the  result  was  a 
blow  at  its  prestige  from  which  it  never  recovered. 
That  the  papacy  could  not  be  regarded  as  the  source 
whence  a  new  life  might  spring  up  for  the  regenera- 
tion of  the  church  was  evident  from  the  papal  con- 
flicts with  itself  ;  it  was  becoming  the  heaviest  burden 
which  the  church  had  to  carry.  It  was  only  by  pro- 
claiming that  there  was  a  power  in  Christendom  su-l 
perior  to  the  popes,  and  by  which  they  could  be  pun- 
ished or  made  amenable  to  law,  that  the  hopes  of 
reform  continued  for  generations  to  be  nourished. 

If  we  ask  for  the  causes  which  explain  this  appar- 
ently sudden  decline  of  the  papacy,  and  with  it  of 
the  ascendency  of  the  mediaeval  church,  they  are  to  be 
found  in  a  reversal  of  that  process  which  had  accom- 
panied its  first  appearance  in  history.  The  papacy 
rose  at  a  time  when  men  were  unable  or  no  longer  free 
to  think  for  themselves,  when  they  had  ceased  to  be 
competent  to  the  task  of  self-government.  Its  career 
drew  to  a  close  when  men  were  once  more  able  to  re- 
sume the  office  which  in  their  weakness  they  had  del- 
egated to  a  priesthood,  when  they  were  once  more  free 
to  think  for  themselves.  The  reason  and  conscience 
of  humanity  had  outgrown  the  papacy,  and  refused  to 
be  held  by  its  leading-strings.  The  tide  which  had 
been  rising  in  the  history  of  the  popes,  from  the  time 
of  Leo  the  Great  in  the  fifth  century,  had  now  begun 
to  go  out.  The  work  of  the  popes  was  done,  and  He 
who  had  raised  an  institution  so  unwelcome  in  its  first 
appearance,  but  so  necessary,  was  now  removing  it  or 
gently  letting  it  down  from  its  old  supremacy. 


244       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

No  institutions  which  have  played  a  large  part  in 
human  history  have  lived  in  vain.  Before  they  decline 
or  disappear,  they  yield  up  to  the  larger  life  of  human- 
ity the  secret  of  their  success  or  influence.  As  his- 
tory evolves  its  contents,  and  its  seemingly  uncon- 
scious purpose  is  disclosed,  that  which  had  appeared 
most  untrue  or  antagonistic  to  the  spirit  of  Christ's 
religion  is  seen  to  have  subserved  the  progress  of 
mankind. 

The  worship  of  relics,  which  was  so  prominent  a 
feature  in  mediaeval  life,  had,  in  the  absence  of  litera- 
ture or  the  want  of  ability  to  use  it,  ministered  to  the 
desire  to  get  nearer  to  historic  events  and  personages, 
or  to  realize  more  vividly  their  existence  ;  it  had  stim- 
ulated pilgrimages  to  holy  places,  which  had  finally 
culminated  in  the  great  Crusades.  The  Crusades  in 
turn  changed  the  shape  of  society,  broke  down  feudal- 
ism, and  prepared  the  way  for  modern  states  ;  they  en- 
larged the  narrow  horizon  of  Christendom  by  bringing 
it  into  contact  with  Mohammedan  culture  and  civiliza- 
tion ;  they  concentrated  its  gaze  upon  Christ,  and  in- 
tensified the  consciousness  of  the  Christian  principle 
in  contrast  with  that  of  Islam.  Even  by  their  failure 
to  accomplish  their  direct  aim  —  the  wresting  of  the 
holy  sepulchre  from  the  hands  of  the  infidel  —  they 
damaged  irretrievably  the  prestige  of  the  Latin  church, 
for  the  popes  had  committed  Christendom  to  the  at- 
tempt, and  could  not  evade  the  consequences  which  it 
entailed. 

The  worship  of  saints,  which  under  one  aspect  was  a 
disowning  of  the  perfect  humanity  of  Christ,  and  the 
substitution  for  it  of  lower  ideals,  was  yet  a  testimony, 
in  however  debased  a  form,  to  the  belief  that  human- 
ity had  been  redeemed,  —  that  in  its  inmost  being  it 


THE  MEDIEVAL  CULTUS.  245 

was  affiliated  with  tlie  divine  nature ;  out  of  saint-  / 
worship  had  grown  the  miracle-plays,  which  were  the  \ 
germs  of  the  modern  drama ;  in  the  lives  of  the  saints 
as  they  were  read  or  commemorated,  were  the  rude 
beginnings  of  the  study  of  history  as  something  deeper 
and  more  inward  than  a  mere  chronicle  of  events. 
The  production  of  images  was  the  preliminary  step  to 
Christian  art,  whose  glory  it  was  to  have  anticipated 
the  long  and  arduous  process  of  theological  thought. 
The  separation  between  humanity  and  Deity  was  over- 
come for  the  popular  mind  when  artists,  discarding 
conventional  symbols  like  the  halo,  which  had  hitherto 
been  considered  necessary  for  representing  the  divine 
as  distinct  from  the  human,  were  content  to  see  in  per- 
fect humanity  the  manifestation  of  God.  In  the  ten- 
dency of  painting  to  concentrate  attention  upon  human 
personality,  in  its  aim  to  reproduce  upon  the  canvas 
the  likeness  of  the  inward  spirit,  may  be  seen  a  prepa- 
ration for  receiving  the  truth  that  in  the  human  con- 
sciousness lies  the  reflection  of  a  divine  image. 

The  papacy  had  served  the  purpose  of  consolidating 
the  different  races  of  Europe  into  one  great  family,  so 
that  they  could  never  again  lose  the  sense  of  relation- 
ship ;  it  had  held  men  under  subjection  to  an  external  ' 
law  until  they  were  able  to  hear  a  voice  that  spoke 
within ;  it  had  served  as  the  conscience  of  the  people 
at  a  time  when  otherwise  they  would  have  been  mute 
under  the  oppression  or  brute  force  of  the  civil 
power.^ 

^  "  There  is  a  spirit  of  community  in  the  modern  world  which 
has  always  been  regarded  as  the  basis  of  its  progressive  improve- 
ments, whether  in  religion,  politics,  manners,  social  life,  or  litera- 
ture. To  bring  about  this  community,  it  was  necessary  that  the? 
western  nations  should  at  one  period  constitute  what  may  be 


246       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION, 

Monasticisin  had  stood  for  the  idea  that  human  sal- 
vation was  not  a  mechanical  process  by  which  the  col- 
lective mass  of  humanity,  within  the  communion  of 
the  church,  was  to  be  lifted  by  no  effort  of  its  own  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  It  was  a  protest  in  behalf  of 
the  truth,  which  in  the  Middle  Ages  most  needed  to 
be  emphasized,  that  salvation  demands  the  activity  of 
all  the  faculties  of  one's  being.  In  this  aspect  mo- 
nasticism  was  the  assertion  of  the  truth  of  individual 
responsibility.  It  declined  as  an  institution  because 
of  the  fearful  perversion  of  which  it  had  been  guilty, 
—  the  abuse  which  it  had  heaped  on  things  most  di- 
vine, the  neglect  with  which  it  treated  a  large  range 
of  human  duties  and  relationships,  whose  right  dis- 
charge is  essential  to  the  fullest  salvation  of  man. 
But  it  did  not  decline  till  the  truth  which  it  had  con- 
served, —  the  principle  of  individualism,  —  had  been 
acknowledged  as  the  basis  of  the  coming  reform. 

To  this  same  end  Scholasticism  contributed,  in  the 
change  which  it  underwent  from  realism  to  nominal- 
ism in  the  fourteenth  century.  Whatever  may  be  the 
speculative  estimate  of  its  value,  nominalism  was  in- 
dispensable to  the  work  of  reform  by  the  importance 
which  it  attaches  to  the  processes  of  the  thinking  mind. 
Its  tendency  was  to  emancipate  the  reason  from  the 
yoke  of  authority,  to  disperse  a  host  of  false  concep- 
tions which  embarrassed  the  mind  in  the  search  after 
truth,  —  especially  to  free  the  individual  from  bond- 
age to  a  mysterious  species  in  which  his  distinct  exist- 
ence was  absorbed,  to  proclaim  the  man  in  his  indi- 

called  a  single  politico-ecclesiastical  state.  But  this  also  was  to 
be  no  more  than  the  phenomenon  of  a  moment  in  the  grand 
march  of  events."— Ranke,  Hist,  of  the  Popes,  i.  p.  25.  (Bohn 
ed.) 


INDIVIDUALISM  AND   THE   CHURCH.      247 

vidual  responsibility  as  the  unit  with  which  God  dealt 
directly  in  His  government  of  the  world.  Other  in- 
fluences were  also  combining  to  strengthen  the  same 
conviction.  It  had  been  one  of  the  false  assumptions 
of  mediaeval  theology,  that  those  in  the  communicm  of 
the  church  who  had  been  regenerated  by  baptism  con- 
stituted, as  it  were,  a  distinct  species  marked  off  by 
sharp  lines  from  the  larger  circle  of  humanity,  to 
which  they  only  belonged  by  some  lower  tie.  In  its 
origin  this  belief  had  sprung  from  a  strong  desire  on 
the  part  of  men  to  realize  their  oneness  through  the 
church.  The  terrors  of  the  "  dark  ages,"  as  the  tenth 
century  has  been  designated,  had  consolidated  a  fright- 
ened people  and  made  them  feel  that  their  strength 
lay  in  union.  The  Latin  church,  in  its  aspect  as  the 
•outcome  of  this  conviction,  had  offered  the  possibility 
of  a  collective  salvation  to  the  mass  within  its  fold. 
But  the  world  was  no  longer  to  the  imagination  what 
it  had  been  in  the  days  of  Augustine  or  Hildebrand. 
Men  were  beginning  to  feel  themselves  at  home  within 
it  as  in  a  universe  where  God  was  dwelling ;  they  no 
longer  hesitated  to  explore  its  secrets  or  to  travel  till 
they  reached  its  utmost  bounds.  As  the  times  changed 
and  the  great  outer  world  opened  up  its  attractions  to 
the  eager  gaze,  the  church  as  a  secluded  nursery  for 
timid  or  despairing  souls,  under  the  guardianship  of 
a  vigilant  hierarchy,  must  inevitably  give  way  to  the 
conception  of  a  church  which  did  not  fear  to  trust  an 
invisible  head,  in  which  each  individual  man  stood 
in  a  personal  relationship  to  an  unseen  but  almighty 
Father. 

All  through  the  period  which  preceded  the  Reforma- 
tion can  be  traced  the  reassertion  of  those  divine  ele- 
ments in  the  life  of  humanity  which,  since  the  time  of 


248       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

Augustine,  had  been  suppressed  or  subordinated  in  the 
interest  of  the  church,  —  nature,  the  state  or  nation, 
the  family  and  the  individual.  So  vitally  are  all  these 
connected  with  the  environment  of  man  as  God  in- 
tended it,  that  the  revival  of  one  seemed  to  carry  with 
it  the  restoration  of  all  to  their  true  dignity.  We 
have  already  seen  how  the  introduction  of  Greek  phi- 
losophy through  the  writings  of  Aristotle  had  created 
an  impulse  toward  the  study  of  nature.  Following 
closely  in  its  train  came  the  development  of  the  na- 
tional consciousness.  It  was  the  proclamation  of  the 
sanctity  of  the  state  as  an  end  in  itself,  in  the  regula- 
tion of  whose  affairs  no  external  power  had  a  right  to 
interfere,  which  constituted  the  lever  by  which  the 
papacy  was  overthrown.  The  popes  never  recovered 
from  the  humiliation  of  Boniface  by  Philip  the  Fair 
of  France,  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century. 
The  theory  of  the  state  in  its  relation  to  the  church 
which  Augustine  had  propounded,  the  realization  of 
which  by  the  great  popes  of  the  Middle  Ages  had 
made  possible  the  retention  of  their  supremacy  over 
the  civil  power,  could  no  longer  be  maintained  in  its 
ancient  vigor,  when  men  were  convinced  that  the 
highest  end  of  the  nation  was  not  merely  to  enforce 
by  the  might  of  its  arm  the  legislation  and  policy  of 
the  church,  but  to  consider  its  own  well-being  as  its 
first  and  most  sacred  obligation.  In  the  working  out 
of  this  principle  was  involved  the  dismemberment  of 
Christendom.  It  was  not  Luther  who  shattered  a  so- 
called  Catholic  unity  into  fragments,  but  the  expan- 
sion of  the  national  consciousness,  whether  in  France, 
in  Germany,  or  in  England.  This  was  the  force  which 
took  from  the  church  its  temporal  power,  and  by  so 
doing  initiated  the  process  wliich  was  to  restore  it  to 


INFLUENCE   OF  NATIONALISM,  249 

its  earlier  and  purer  condition,  when  it  was  a  perva- 
sive spiritual  influence,  depending  upon  its  advocacy 
of  truth  and  the  voluntary  recognition  of  its  disciples 
for  maintaining  and  extending  its  influence. 

Accompanying  the  growth  of  the  national  spirit  was 
the  development  of  the  national  languages  as  a  vehicle 
for  the  expression  of  a  people's  thought.  Nationalism, 
the  use  of  the  vernacular,  and  the  desire  for  reform 
went  hand  in  hand,  whether  in  England  or  France, 
Germany  or  Italy.  When  the  Latin  language,  which 
had  been  the  sacred  tongue  into  the  mould  of  which 
the  Christian  revelation  had  been  cast,  was  displaced 
by  the  vernacular,  that  repressive  force  was  removed 
which  had  prevented  the  thoughts,  the  impulses,  the 
longings  of  the  people  from  finding  a  full  and  natural 
expression.^  As  we  listen  for  the  first  fresh  utterances 
of  the  people,  as  they  found  a  voice  in  the  rising 
national  literatures,  there  is  one  tone  which  character- 
izes them  all  alike,  — that  of  opposition  to  the  hier- 
archy and  the  abuses  which  it  was  perpetuating. 

The  evangelical  reformers  and  the  mystics  of  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  great  as  were  the 
dijfferences  that  divided  them,  were  alike  in  their  sym- 
pathy with  the  rising  nationalism,  alike  also  in  using 
the  vernacular  as  the  means  for  the  expression  of  their 

1  "  The  language  of  the  Roman  people,"  says  Heine,  "  can 
never  belie  its  origin.  It  is  a  language  of  command  for  gener- 
als ;  a  language  of  decree  for  administrators  ;  an  attorney  lan- 
guage for  usurers  ;  a  lapidary  speech  for  the  stone-hard  Roman 
people.  .  .  .  Though  Christianity  with  a  true  Christian  patience 
tormented  itself  for  more  than  a  thousand  years  with  the  attempt 
to  spiritualize  this  tongue,  its  efforts  remained  fruitless  ;  and 
when  John  Tauler  sought  to  fathom  the  awful  abysses  of  thought 
and  his  heart  overflowed  with  religious  emotion  he  was  impelled 
to  speak  German." 


250       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION, 

thought  as  well  as  for  reaching  the  popular  mind. 
Wycliffe  was  a  statesman  as  well  as  a  theologian,  with 
a  jealousy  for  his  nation's  honor  ;  Huss,  who  followed 
him,  was  equally  unable  to  separate  his  theological 
convictions  from  his  politics ;  Savonarola  was  haunted 
by  the  vision  of  a  perfect  state,  to  the  accomplishment 
of  which  in  Florence  he  believed  he  had  been  divinely 
called.  The  mystic  theology  of  Eckart,  Tauler,  and 
others  was  the  first  expression  of  the  German  con- 
sciousness, anticipating  by  centuries  its  maturer  form 
in  the  systems,  whether  religious  or  philosophical,  of 
our  own  age. 


I. 

Before  treating  of  the  differences  that  distinguish 
the  two  reformatory  movements,  known  as  the  evan- 
gelical and  the  mystic,  it  is  important  to  note  the  fear 
tures  which  they  possessed  in  common,  by  which  both 
contributed  to  the  revolution  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

Evangelical  and  mystic  reformers  were  united  in 
rejecting  the  theory  upon  which  the  authority  of  the 
hierarchy  reposed.  Both  had  ceased  to  regard  the 
church  as  a  mysterious  entity,  existing  apart  from 
the  congregation,  or  as  possessing  in  this  capacity  a 
"  deposit "  of  supernatural  trusts.  The  abandonment 
of  this  belief  carried  with  it  also  the  rejection  of  the 
principle  of  sacramental  grace.  This,  too,  had  been  a 
peculiarly  Latin  growth,  of  which  Augustine  had  laid 
the  dogmatic  basis  in  his  doctrine  of  original  sin. 
When  God  was  thought  of  as  at  a  distance,  and  man- 
kind was  believed,  in  consequence  of  the  catastrophe 
of  Adam's  fall,  to  have  lost  all  inward  divine  capacity, 
it  had  seemed  necessary  that  man  should  be  restored 


THE  RISE   OF  PREACHING.  251 

and  supported  by  influences  infused  into  the  soul  from 
without.  In  Augustine's  thought,  redemption  did  not 
lie  in  the  power  of  the  incarnation,  or  in  the  personal 
influence  of  the  present  living  Christ.  To  baptism 
and  other  sacramental  channels  was  confided  the  oper- 
ation of  a  quality  which  was  known  as  grace,  —  a 
quality  or  force  which,  infused  into  the  soul,  would 
enable  it  to  rise  above  the  dominion  of  sin,  and  abide 
in  union  with  its  Creator. 

So  long  as  the  sacramental  theory  prevailed,  but  lit- 
tle importance  was  assigned  to  preaching.  In  the 
Latin  church,  from  the  very  earliest  period,  it  had 
played  a  subordinate  part ;  whereas,  in  the  Greek 
church,  not  only  had  the  sermon  constituted  an  impor- 
tant element  in  the  worship,  but  even  the  liturgies  had 
taken  on  a  homiletic  cast.  The  absence  of  preaching 
is  one  of  the  striking  features  of  the  mediaeval  church. 
It  cannot  be  accounted  for  altogether  on  the  ground 
that  the  language  of  the  people  was  not  sufficiently 
developed  for  such  a  purpose.  The  sacramental  the- 
ology dispenses  with  the  need  of  preaching,  for  it  pro- 
fesses to  accomplish  the  end  of  preaching  in  another 
way.  There  were  great  preachers  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
but  they  rose  in  connection  with  the  Crusades,  when 
such  a  method  was  the  only  one  of  rousing  the  popular 
enthusiasm.  Preaching,  as  a  necessary  and  constituent 
part  of  religious  culture,  originated  with  the  heretical 
sects  of  the  twelfth  century,  such  as  the  Cathari  and 
the  Waldenses.  When  its  power  was  seen  in  diffus- 
ing heresy,  the  Dominicans  seized  upon  it  as  equally 
effective  for  overcoming  heresy.  But  even  the  Domin- 
icans, though  they  never  gave  up  the  principle,  were 
unequal  to  the  task  of  coping  with  heretical  oratory, 
and  it  is  very  significant  that  into  their  hands  should 


252       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

have  been  intrusted  the  management  of  the  inquisi- 
tion. It  really  required  the  combination  of  the  two 
means  to  suppress  obnoxious  thought. 

Preaching,  as  a  means  of  spiritual  culture,  presup- 
poses a  divine  constitution  of  the  soul,  a  human  nature 
charged  with  divine  possibilities.  Its  object  is,  by 
forcible  exhortation,  by  attractive  presentation  and  re- 
iteration of  the  truth,  to  awaken  the  slumbering  capac- 
ities of  the  soul  into  activity,  to  educate  and  strengthen 
that  which  is  already  divinely  implanted  in  the  germs, 
to  evoke  the  divine  that  is  in  man,  to  feed  the  soul  from 
within  rather  than  from  without.  For  such  an  end  it 
was  first  used  by  the  great  mystics,  Eckart  and  Tauler, 
in  the  pre-reformation  age.  WyclifPe  maintained  that 
preaching  was  the  best  work  that  a  priest  could  do  ; 
better  than  praying  or  ministering  the  sacraments. 
He  showed  his  sense  of  its  value  by  organizing  his  band 
of  preachers  to  go  throughout  the  kingdom  proclaim- 
ing the  gospel  as  it  was  then  read  in  its  freshness  and 
novelty  in  the  newly  translated  Bible.  The  power  of 
the  new  preaching  produced  a  marvelous  effect;  the 
human  soul  responded  to  the  spoken  word  as  by  an 
innate  law  of  its  being ;  all  the  pomp  and  splendor 
of  the  church  and  its  ritual  were  as  nothing  compared 
with  the  fascination  which  the  people  felt  under  the 
spell  of  the  preacher,  whose  heart,  glowing  with  the 
truth,  appealed  to  their  own  hearts  with  irrepressible 
power,  interpreting  to  them  the  vague  motives  and 
longings  of  the  soul.  Preaching  became  from  this 
time  a  factor  in  human  development,  and  prepared  the 
way  for  the  Reformation.  When  the  Reformation  was 
accomplished,  it  took  its  rightful  place  in  the  newly 
constituted  churches,  becoming  the  sacrament,  as  it 
were,  of  the  larger  faith.     Under  its  influence  the 


SCRIPTURE  SUBSTITUTED  FOR  TRADITION.    253 

confessional  disappeared  with  its  grace  conveyed  by 
priestly  absolution;  the  preacher  became  the  public 
confessor  in  the  presence  of  the  congregation ;  the 
declaration  of  absolution  was  ratified  by  the  enlight- 
ened conscience  of  the  people,  as  the  voice  of  God 
speaking  in  human  hearts. 

When  the  principle  of  church  authority,  represented 
by  the  hierarchy  as  the  ecclesia  docens,  was  repudiated 
in  the  interest  of  reform,  the  appeal  was  taken  by  the 
evangelical  reformers  to  the  Bible  as  the  word  of  God. 
Hitherto,  in  the  long  course  of  theological  develop- 
ment, no  attempt  had  been  made  to  determine  the  rela- 
tion of  the  Bible  to  the  authority  of  the  church.  The 
voice  of  the  church  had  been  assumed  as  final  in  all 
matters  relating  to  the  faith,  and  a  practical  infallibil- 
ity attributed  to  its  decisions.  When  the  evangelical 
reformers  rejected  the  authority  of  the  church,  it  be- 
came necessary  to  find  another  authority  for  the  tenets 
of  the  Christian  faith,  to  which  all  men  could  go  alike 
in  search  of  that  absolute  truth  which  God  had  com- 
municated to  men.  When  from  the  time  of  Wy cliff e 
the  church  began  to  tend  toward  the  form  of  a  consti- 
tutional monarchy  in  contrast  with  the  absolutism  of 
the  papacy,  it  became  necessary  that  it  should  be  gov- 
erned in  accordance  with  a  clear  and  inviolable  char- 
ter, instead  of  being  subject  to  the  arbitrary  will  of 
its  former  rulers.  Wycliffe,  and  others  like  minded, 
while  holding  that  the  predestinated  constituted  the 
true  though  invisible  church,  were  by  no  means  dis- 
posed to  sweep  away  the  ecclesiastical  organization, 
however  they  might  have  been  inclined  to  dispense 
with  the  necessity  of  the  pope,  or  been  willing  to  make 
other  changes  in  ecclesiastical  and  religious  usages. 
But,  whatever  might  be  the  form  of  its  government, 


254        THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION. 

the  church  must  have  its  charter  to  which  all  coulcl 
appeal,  to  which,  as  to  a  standard  and  an  ideal,  the 
government,  the  discipline,  and  the  ritual  of  the  church 
must  necessarily  conform. 

But  the  Bible  now  came  to  be  regarded  in  a  higher 
light  than  as  a  book  for  the  people  and  a  charter  for 
the  church.  In  the  time  of  Wycliffe  we  stand  on  the 
eve  of  a  long  process,  in  which  the  Reformation  is  to 
be  seen  departing  most  widely  from  the  whole  method 
and  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages.  When  Thomas  Aqui- 
nas first  made  the  memorable  distinction  between  nat- 
ural and  revealed  theology,  he  made  a  contribution  to 
theological  thought  which  was  destined  to  play  a  part 
of  the  highest  magnitude  in  the  future,  —  a  distinction 
which  would  survive  and  retain  its  vitality  when  all 
else  in  his  system  would  be  neglected  or  forgotten.  In 
making  this  distinction,  Aquinas,  however,  did  little 
more  than  call  attention  to  two  different  directions 
which  the  human  mind  might  follow.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  might  explore  more  thoroughly  than  had  yet 
been  done  the  real  nature  and  contents  of  the  Chris- 
tian revelation,  as  given  in  Scripture,  —  for  that  was 
what  mediaeval  theology  had  never  done  or  dared  to 
do  ;  or,  on  the  other,  it  might  investigate  dispas- 
sionately, unhindered  by  prejudices  or  restraints  of 
any  kind,  the  nature  and  powers  of  the  human  reason, 
with  reference  to  its  capacity  to  originate  or  receive, 
to  appreciate  or  criticise,  a  revelation.  From  the  time 
of  Wycliffe  we  can  see  in  which  direction  Christian 
thought  was  moving.  There  was  a  deep  conviction 
spreading  like  a  contagion  in  all  spiritual  minds,  that 
God  had  given  to  mankind  a  revelation  in  the  Scrip- 
tures. To  study  and  to  know  that  revelation  became 
the  primary  aim,  the  most  pressing  necessity ;  and  so 


A   REPRESENTATIVE   CRITICISM.         255 

late  as  the  seventeenth  century  the  mind  of  the  church 
was  still  centred  on  the  study  of  the  Bible  as  an  au- 
thoritative external  revelation,  before  there  came  a 
change  which  demanded  a  rehearing  of  the  claims  of 
the  human  reason. 

Wycliffe  was  impelled  to  the  translation  of  the 
Scriptures  into  the  vernacular  by  the  profoundest 
tendencies  of  his  age.  Like  the  Jews  at  the  restora- 
tion of  their  ancient  city,  as  he  fought  with  one  hand 
the  enemies  of  the  truth,  he  was  building  with  the 
other,  when  he  set  forth  the  Bible  as  the  constitution 
and  the  charter  of  the  true  church  against  error  and 
oppression,  and  called  attention  to  the  necessity  of  in- 
quiring anew  into  the  divine  revelation  by  going  to  its 
source  in  the  word  of  God.  How  his  efforts  to  this 
end  were  regarded  may  be  easily  inferred  from  a  rep- 
resentative criticism  upon  his  work,  made  by  a  genuine 
pupil  of  the  old  school :  "  This  Master  Wycliffe,"  says 
Knighton,  "  translated  into  English,  not  an  angelic 
tongue,  the  gospel  that  Christ  committed  to  the  clergy 
and  doctors  of  the  church,  that  they  might  administer 
it  gently  to  laymen  and  infirm  persons  according  to 
the  requirements  of  the  time  and  their  individual  wants 
and  mental  hunger.  So  by  him  it  has  become  common 
and  more  open  to  laymen  and  women  who  know  how 
to  read  than  it  usually  is  to  clerks  of  good  understand- 
ing with  a  fair  amount  of  learning.  And  thus  the 
gospel  pearl  is  cast  forth  and  trodden  by  swine ! 
What  used  to  be  held  dear  by  clerks  and  laymen  is 
become  as  it  were  a  common  amusement  to  both ;  the 
gem  of  clerks  is  turned  into  the  sport  of  laymen  ;  and 
what  was  once  a  talent  given  from  above  to  the  clergy 
and  doctors  of  the  church  is  forever  common  to  the 
laity."  1 

^  Quoted  in  Gairdner,  Studies  in  English  History. 


256       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION. 

There  were  not  wanting  other  critics  who  saw  in  the 
use  made  of  Scripture  by  the  evangelical  reformers  a 
perversion  of  its  true  purpose,  and  who,  ecclesiastics 
though  they  were,  uttered  a  protest  in  behalf  of  the 
reason,  and  of  customs  and  usages,  whose  justification 
was  to  be  found  in  reason,  even  if  no  authority  could 
be  found  for  them  in  the  Bible.  But  the  new  day  now 
dawning  for  humanity  was  one  in  which  men  were 
seeking  to  walk  by  what  they  believed  to  be  the  light 
of  God  alone.  They  were  timid  of  any  substitutes  for 
Him,  whether  in  papal  vicars  of  Christ,  or  hierarchies, 
or  in  the  reason  which  seemed  to  them  identified  with 
all  the  abuses  of  the  past.  They  believed  that  God 
Himself  had  once  actually  spoken  to  the  world,  that 
His  message  of  light  and  life  to  mankind  had  been 
recorded  in  a  book,  and  that  only  one  duty  remained, 
—  to  regulate  life  and  manners,  worship  and  disci- 
pline, government  in  church  or  state,  according  to  the 
revealed  infallible  letter  of  Scripture. 

Mysticism,  whether  in  its  historical  development  or 
in  its  abstract  character  as  a  religious  movement,  is 
best  understood  by  placing  it  in  comparison  with  the 
ruling  aim  of  the  Latin  church.  That  the  church  not 
only  tolerated  it  in  some  of  its  forms,  but  even  sanc- 
tioned it,  does  not  indicate  that  mysticism  was  in  har- 
mony with  the  predominant  purpose  of  Latin  Chris- 
tianity. Just  as  there  was  a  rationalism,  whether  that 
of  Anselm  or  Aquinas,  or  even  a  skepticism,  like  that 
of  Duns  Scotus  or  Occam,  which  could  adjust  itself  to 
the  principle  of  church  authority,  so  there  were  phases 
of  mysticism  which  have  not  only  existed  undisturbed 
in  the  Latin  church,  but  have  been  regarded  with  com- 
placency, and  even  with  approval. 

The  historical  source  from  which  mysticism  in  the 


HISTORICAL   SOURCE   OF  MYSTICISM,    257 

Middle  Ages  drew  its  inspiration  was  the  writings  of 
the  pseudo-Dionysius,  popularly  regarded  as  Dionysius 
the  Areopagite,  who  had  been  converted  under  St. 
Paul's  preaching  at  Athens.  It  was  one  of  the  nu- 
merous offenses  of  Abelard  against  the  judgment  of 
the  church,  that  he  had  questioned  the  identity  of  the 
author  of  the  "  Celestial  Hierarchy  "  with  the  Diony- 
sius who  was  the  patron  saint  of  Paris.  What  the 
effect  would  have  been  upon  Latin  theology  had  it 
been  known  that  Dionysius  wrote  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  fifth  century,  and  was  not  entitled  to  apostolic  au- 
thority, would  be  a  curious  subject  of  inquiry.  For 
from  the  time  when  his  books  were  first  translated 
into  Latin  in  the  ninth  century,  they  were  regarded  as 
having  the  highest  sanction  ;  even  a  theologian  like 
Aquinas  was  indebted  to  them  for  elements  in  his 
thought  which  accorded  imperfectly  with  the  general 
tenor  of  his  theology.  It  is  even  possible  that  the 
tendency  to  pantheism,  against  which  the  School-men 
were  always  struggling,  might  have  been  eliminated 
earlier  and  more  easily  if  it  had  not  been  believed 
that  Dionysius  spoke  to  the  church  with  the  authority 
of  an  associate  of  the  apostles.^ 

^  The  writings  of  Dionysius  are  given  in  vols.  iii.  and  iv.  of 
Migne's  Patrologia,  as  if  belonging  to  the  age  of  the  Apostolic 
Fathers  ;  and  the  late  Archbishop  of  Paris  demonstrated  anew 
that  the  author  was  Dionysius  the  Areopagite, — evidence  that 
the  Roman  Catholic  church,  as  represented  in  France,  still  clings 
to  the  old  tradition.  These  writings  have  been  translated  into 
German  and  French,  but  there  is  no  complete  English  transla- 
tion. Colet,  the  famous  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  in  the  time  of  Eras- 
mus, translated  parts  of  the  Celestial  Hierarchy^  of  which  a  new 
edition  has  recently  been  published.  For  a  fuller  account  of 
Dionysius,  see  Ritter,  Die  CJiristliche  Philosophie,  pp.  385-390  ; 
Vacherot,  Histoire  de  Vecole  d^Alexandrie,  iii.  pp.  37,  ff  ;  Herzog- 
Plitt,  Real-Encyklopcidie^  Art.  Dionysius  ;  Maurice,  Hist,  of  Phi- 
losopJiy;  Vaughan,  Hours  with  the  Mystics. 


258       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION, 

Viewed  in  its  largest  relations  the  system  of  Dio- 
nysius  was  a  combination  of  Neo-Platonic  philosophy 
with  the  leading  characteristics  of  Latin  Christianity. 
As  that  philosophy  had  already  been  used  as  an  agent 
for  reviving  the  various  forms  of  heathenism,  it  is 
not  strange  that  when  Christianity  had  triumphed 
and  become  the  religion  of  the  Roman  state,  Neo- 
Platonism  should  seek  an  alliance  with  the  church 
through  those  lower  characteristics  which,  though  they 
Tiad  received  their  original  development  in  the  West, 
had  become  the  common  property  of  Christendom. 
The  hierarchy  and  the  sacraments  were  the  two  fea- 
tures of  the  church  which  presented  themselves  to  the 
mind  of  the  pseudo-Dionysius  as  most  easily  harmo- 
nizing with  the  Neo-Platonic  method  of  uniting  the 
divine  and  the  human.  To  this  end  he  increased  the 
number  of  the  sacraments  to  six,  attaching  to  them  a 
supernatural  potency,  and  emphasized  the  orders  of 
bishops,  priests,  and  deacons  as  corresponding  to  the 
lower  orders  of  demons  in  the  Neo-Platonic  scale  of 
emanations,  and  as  means  through  which  the  soul  took 
its  first  steps  toward  union  with  Deity.  Above  the 
earthly  hierarchy  rose  the  heavenly,  where  angels  and 
seraphim,  each  in  its  threefold  order,  carried  on  the 
process  of  mediating  between  humanity  and  the  dis- 
tant Deity.  A  system  like  this,  which  glorified  the 
human  institution  by  incorporating  it  as  an  integral 
part  of  a  divine  unearthly  order,  throwing  around  the 
church's  rites  a  resplendent  lustre  of  supernatural 
color,  could  not  but  win  for  itself  an  almost  univer- 
sal acceptance.^    But  despite  its  easy  and  apparently 

^  Maximus,  the  Confessor,  in  his  exposition  of  the  system  of 
Dionysius,  modified  it  in  one  important  respect.  Dionysius  had 
made  the  vision  of  Grod  attainable  in  this  life ;  Maximus  post- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS.  259 

natural  affiliation  with  Latin  Christianity,  the  system 
of  Dionysius  was  only  Neo-Platonic  heathenism  in  a 
debased  form,  and  its  author  had  done  little  more 
than  baptize  with  a  Christian  nomenclature  the  vari- 
ous grades  of  personal  agency  which  in  the  heathen 
view  stretched  themselves  across  the  vast  abyss  that 
separated  humanity  from  God.^ 

It  is  not,  however,  in  the  form  of  Dionysius'  thought, 
but  in  its  spirit,  that  we  must  seek  for  the  cause  which 
made  him  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  source  of  mysti- 
cism. While  the  aim  of  the  Latin  church  was  to  hold 
God  and  humanity  apart,  —  to  maintain  their  separa- 
tion as  the  foundation  of  the  only  true  cultus  for  the 
human  spirit,  —  the  object  of  Dionysius  was  to  bring 
them  together  in  the  closest  relationship.  In  this  re- 
spect he  was  still  perpetuating,  although  in  a  degraded 
form,  the  purpose  of  the  earlier  Neo-Platonism,  and 
not  only  so,  but  there  was  speaking  through  him  the 
spirit  of  the  early  Greek  theology.  If  he  seemed  to 
make  unduly  prominent  the  hierarchy  and  ritual  ordi- 

poned  the  vision  to  another  world  and  the  distant  future.  A 
change  like  this  put  Dionysius  in  closer  accord  with  the  spirit  of 
Latin  Christianity.     See  Ritter,  p.  392,  and  Vacherot,  iii.  p.  38. 

^  Le  faux  Denys  semble  un  neoplatonicien  des  derniers  temps, 
qui,  en  passant  au  Christianisme,  a  garde,  comme  avait  dej^  fait 
Synesius,  ses  doctrines  philosophiques,  en  les  fondant  habilement 
avec  les  priueipes  de  sa  nouvelle  croyance.  La  distinction  des 
trois  methodes,  rationelle,  symbolique,  et  mystique,  pour  parvenir 
k  Dieu,  est  empruntee  h  Proclus,  ainsi  que  la  theorie  de  I'extase  ; 
la  doctrine  de  la  Hierarchie  Celeste  n'est  que  la  theorie  des  Ordres 
divins  assez  heureusement  adaptee  k  la  theologie  chretienne  ;  le 
traite  de  la  Hierarchee  ecclesiastique  rappelle  la  description  du 
culte  pai'en  restaure  par  le  neoplatonisme.  La  theologie  du  faux 
Denys  n'est  pas  meme  un  melange  des  idees  alexandrines  et 
chretiennes  ;  sous  des  formules  et  des  noms  empruntes  au  Chris- 
tianisme, le  fond  en  est  tout  neoplatonicien.    Vacherot,  iii.  p.  37. 


260        THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION, 

nances  of  the  church,  it  was  always  as  a  means  to  a 
higher  end.  That  end  was  never  allowed  to  fade 
from  the  view,  or  the  means  to  the  end  usurp  its  place 
as  a  home  in  which  the  soul  might  rest.  Hence  the 
study  of  Dionysius'  writings  by  vigorous  and  inde- 
pendent minds  must  put  them  on  a  track  which  di- 
verged from  the  road  which  the  church  was  traveling, 
leading  them  back  again  to  higher  conceptions  of  God 
and  of  man,  and  of  their  mutual  relations,  than  those 
which  the  Latin  church  had  inherited  from  Augustine. 
The  hierarchy  and  the  ritual  were  relegated  to  a  sub- 
ordinate sphere,  as  the  lower  rounds  of  the  ladder  are 
left  behind  in  mounting  the  higher. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  do  more  than  refer  to  the  mys- 
ticism of  the  twelfth  century,  which  is  known  as  the 
French  or  Romanic,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  later 
German  school.  It  was  connected  chiefly  with  the 
monastery  of  St.  Victor  near  Paris,  although  its  mood 
was  shared  by  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  and  in  the  fol- 
lowing century  it  found  a  distinguished  representative 
in  Bonaventura,  the  Seraphic  Doctor  of  the  schools. 
While  it  drew  its  inspiration  from  Dionysius,  it  dif- 
fered from  the  later  German  mysticism  in  the  absence 
of  an  intellectual  or  speculative  temper,  owing  partly 
to  the  disfavor  into  which  the  exercise  of  the  intellect 
had  fallen  through  the  condemnation  of  Abelard.  In 
the  place  of  the  reason  as  the  facidty  which  appre- 
hends the  divine,  the  French  mystics  were  inclined  to 
believe  in  some  special  faculty  of  the  soul  to  which 
was  vouchsafed,  under  certain  conditions,  the  imme- 
diate intuition  of  God.  This  school  of  mysticism  was 
also  wanting  in  the  ethical  tone  which  pervades  tho 
thought  of  Eckart  and  Tauler  ;  its  tendency  was  to 
conceive  of  God  as  if  a  physical  essence  ;  it  sought  in 


CHARACTER   OF  GERMAN  MYSTICISM.      261 

the  emotions  for  the  evidence  of  the  union  of  the  soul 
with  God;  its  language  in  describing  the  ecstatic 
sweetness  of  the  divine  communion  assumed  a  pas- 
sionate and  sensuous  tone. 

It  was  left  to  the  German  mystics  of  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries  to  assert  for  the  first  time  in 
the  history  of  Latin  theology  a  higher  and  truer  con- 
ception of  God.  They  did  not  constitute  a  sect  in 
the  church;  they  were  simply  independent  thinkers 
with  a  kindred  aim;  there  were  diversities  in  their 
method,  and  variations  in  the  results  of  their  thought, 
but  they  were  agreed  in  declaring  that  God  dwells  in 
the  innermost  recesses  of  the  spirit,  that  there  is  in 
the  natural  constitution  of  man  a  divine  element,  that 
to  find  God  or  to  grow  in  the  knowledge  of  God  is 
to  be  accomplished  by  looking  within,  and  not  to  ex- 
traneous infusions  from  without.  The  scholastic  theo- 
logians were  always  on  their  guard  against  pantheism, 
checking  or  modifying  the  free  expression  of  their 
thought  for  fear  of  confounding  God  with  the  world. 
But  the  mystics  had  no  such  fear,  for  in  their  concep- 
tion of  God  righteousness  was  conjoined  as  essential 
with  the  divine  love  ;  with  such  an  idea  of  God  it  was 
not  possible  to  identify  Him  in  a  pantheistic  fashion 
with  the  life  of  nature  or  of  humanity.  Hence  they 
asserted  the  divine  immanence  without  fear  or  quali- 
fication. "  God  (says  Eckart)  is  alike  near  in  all  crea- 
tures. I  have  a  power  in  my  soul  which  enables  me 
to  perceive  God ;  I  am  as  certain  as  that  I  live  that 
nothing  is  so  near  to  me  as  God.  He  is  nearer  to  me 
than  I  am  to  myself.  It  is  a  part  of  His  very  essence 
that  He  should  be  nigh  and  present  to  me.  God  is  in 
all  things  and  places  alike,  and  is  ever  ready  to  give 
Himself  to  us  in  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  receive  Him ; 


262        THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION, 

he  knows  God  aright  who  sees  Him  in  all  things."  ^ 
This  doctrine  of  the  divine  immanence  as  held  alike 
by  all  the  German  mystics,  Tauler,  Suso,  or  Ruys- 
broek,  involved  the  correlate  truth  that  human  nature, 
in  which  God  can  dwell  so  intimately,  must  be  in  its 
inmost  essence  akin  to  the  divine  nature.  The  two 
natures  can  no  longer  be  conceived  as  foreign  to  each 
other  ;  the  one  is  the  image  of  the  other.  The  capac- 
ity for  God  is  not,  as  Augustine  and  Aquinas  had 
conceived  it,  a  thing  of  which  man  is  destitute  by  cre- 
ation in  consequence  of  Adam's  fall,  and  therefore  a 
supernatural  gift  infused  into  the  soul  at  baptism ;  the 
divine  in  man  is  the  very  essence  of  his  soul.  That 
which,  according  to  Aquinas,  is  a  superadded  quality 
not  to  be  found  in  the  kingdom  of  nature,  is  with 
Eckart  the  inmost  principle  of  man's  being  as  it  ex- 
ists by  nature;  the  supernatural  becomes  with  him 
that  which  in  the  highest  sense  is  the  most  truly 
natural.  The  kingdom  of  God  does  not  stand  apart 
from  man's  constitution  by  nature  under  the  rule  of 
an  external  hierarchy;  it  is  a  kingdom  manifested 
within  the  soul :  he  who  knows  and  perceives  how 
nigh  God's  kingdom  is  may  say,  "  Truly  the  Lord  is 
in  this  place  and  I  knew  it  not."  The  doctrine  of 
the  incarnation,  which  in  Latin  theology  had  been  an 
incomprehensible,  mysterious  fact,  before  which  man 
humiliated  himself  in  awe,  became  the  central  point 
in  mystic  theology,  as  showing  how  closely  God  and 

*  A  sermon  of  Eckart  which  contains  his  most  distinctive 
belief  is  given  among  Tauler's  sermons  (Second  Sunday  in  Ad- 
vent), translated  by  Miss  Winkworth.  See,  also,  Dorner,  Per- 
son of  Christ,  b.  ii.  pp.  1-60,  for  a  discussion  of  German  mysti- 
cism in  the  pre-reformation  age,  and  Schmidt,  Les  Mystiques  du 
W  Siecle. 


THEOLOGY  OF  ECKART.  263 

man  could  come  together,  how  Deity  had  assimilated  to 
itself  in  Christ  that  which  in  its  essence  was  congruous 
with  the  divine.  The  relationship  was  so  close  be- 
tween God  and  man,  that  in  Eckart's  thought  human- 
ity was  as  necessary  to  Deity  as  Deity  to  humanity. 
The  incarnation  reveals  God  as  love,  and  love  as  God. 
The  essence  of  Deity  is  not  physical,  but  moral  or  spir- 
itual, and  the  object  of  this  union  of  God  with  man  is 
that  man  also  may  develop  his  personality  in  love,  ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  the  divine  existence. 

The  German  mystics  did  not  aim  to  lose  themselves 
in  ecstatic  emotion,  or  to  gain  merely  some  sensuous 
impression  of  a  vision  of  the  divine.  Tauler,  who  was 
the  great  preacher  of  his  age,  sought  to  impress  his 
hearers  with  the  idea  of  righteousness  as  indispensa- 
ble to  knowing  God  and  realizing  the  divine  nearness. 
The  position  of  the  mystics  seemed  open  to  the  objec- 
tion, that  if  God's  presence  is  a  reality  in  the  soul  and 
in  the  world,  everything  may  be  left  to  the  divine  ac- 
tivity in  accomplishing  human  salvation^while  man 
may  remain  merely  passive  in  the  process.  But  to 
this  Eckart's  answer  would  be  that  man's  blessedness 
does  not  consist  in  this,  that  God  is  in  him  and  so 
close  to  him,  but  in  his  perceiving  God's  presence  and 
thus  knowing  and  loving  Him.  Only  he  who  knows 
in  this  sense  will  feel  that  God's  kingdom  is  nigh  at 
hand.  Knowledge,  as  Eckart  uses  the  expression,  car- 
ries with  it  the  obedience  of  the  whole  nature.  In  this 
sense  Plato  had  used  the  term,  and  the  early  Greek 
theologians,  when  they  said  that  sin  lay  in  ignorance ; 
or  to  speak  after  a  higher  authority.  This  is  life  eter- 
nal, to  know  Thee  the  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ 
Whom  Thou  hast  sent.  In  the  language  of  Eckart: 
"  God  is  ever  ready  but  we  are  very  imready ;  God  is 


264       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION. 

nigh  to  us  but  we  are  far  from  Him ;  God  is  within, 
we  are  without;  God  is  at  home,  we  are  strangers. 
God  leadeth  the  righteous  by  a  narrow  path  till  they 
come  unto  a  wide  and  open  place ;  that  is  unto  the 
true  freedom  of  that  spirit  which  has  become  one 
spirit  with  God." 

The  German  mystics  when  compared  with  the  evan- 
gelical reformers  are  seen  to  have  had  a  different  mo- 
tive and  aim.  They  had  little  interest  in  proclaiming 
the  revelation  of  the  book ;  they  were  occupied  with 
that  which  God  revealed  in  the  inner  life  of  the  soul. 
There  lay  the  real  revelation,  compared  with  which 
the  other  was  a  thing  without,  powerless  to  help  as 
are  all  external  agencies.  The  ground  of  certitude 
with  them  lay  not  in  the  outward  letter  of  the  record, 
but  in  the  attestation  of  the  spirit  within.  They  took 
little  part  therefore  in  the  effort  to  change  the  form  or 
structure  of  the  church ;  they  had  little  of  that  spirit 
of  combativeness  or  antagonism  which  would  lead 
them  to  ai^y  open  revolt ;  they  were  content  with  the 
old  organization  so  long  as  they  were  free  to  put  their 
own  more  spiritual  interpretation  upon  its  cultus.  The 
order  to  which  they  belonged,  the  "  Friends  of  God," 
had  no  political  aim ;  its  object  was  to  develop  true  re- 
ligion in  the  soul,  and  to  bind  together  for  that  object 
all  men  of  a  kindred  spirit.  But  while  they  seem  in- 
active compared  with  a  Wycliffe,  they  did  in  some 
respects  a  greater,  more  positive  work  than  the  evan- 
gelical reformers,  although  with  the  latter  lay  the  more 
immediate  future.  The  one  class  was  preparing  the 
way  for  the  overthrow  of  the  hierarchy,  and  at  the 
same  time  presenting  a  substitute  that  would  still  hold 
man  in  subjection  to  an  external  authority ;  the  mys- 
tics developed  a  principle,  which,  when  its  full  signif- 


MYSTICISM  NOT  A    VAGUE  REVERIE.       265 

icance  should  be  discerned  in  later  ages,  would  appear 
as  the  foundation  of  a  more  spiritual,  more  compre- 
hensive theology  than  the  Latin  church  had  ever 
known  in  all  her  history.  The  voice  of  Eckart  is  not 
merely  the  echo  of  an  Athanasius  pleading  for  the 
truth  of  the  divine  immanence.  It  is  an  utterance 
from  the  fresh  consciousness  of  a  new  race  which 
hitherto,  under  the  tutelage  of  Latin  discipline,  had 
not  come  to  itself  or  recognized  its  true  descent.  But 
the  day  was  as  yet  far  off  when  the  church  would  be 
prepared  to  receive  the  message  with  which  he  was 
commissioned. 

German  mysticism  was  not  a  vague  reverie  with  no 
practical  purpose  in  view.  The  labors  of  Tauler,  who 
was  a  pupil  of  Eckart  and  adopted  his  speculative  phi- 
losophy, are  an  evidence  that  it  had  a  mission  for  men 
in  the  midst  of  trouble  and  desolation.  Tauler  was  not 
only  the  great  preacher  of  his  time,  but  he  put  his 
Christianity  to  a  practical  test  in  Strasbourg  when  the 
pestilence  known  as  the  black  death  was  carrying  off 
its  victims  by  thousands.  At  a  moment  when  the  city 
lay  under  the  papal  interdict  in  consequence  of  its  po- 
litical affiliations,  he  defied  the  authority  of  the  church 
in  order  to  minister  to  the  sick  and  dying.  The  fra- 
ternity known  as  the  "  Friends  of  God,"  —  a  beautiful 
designation,  summing  up  in  a  word  the  whole  spirit 
and  aim  of  German  mysticism  in  accordance  with  the 
saying  of  Christ,  Henceforth  I  call  you  not  servants 
hut  friends^  —  this  order,  which  owned  Eckart  as  its 
founder  and  guide,  was  widely  spread  in  the  south- 
western part  of  Germany ;  it  included  a  large  num- 
ber of  laity  in  its  fold,  and  its  object  was  not  only  the 
cidtivation  of  religion  among  its  members,  but  a  spirit 
of  helpfulness  to  others.    A  similar  organization  arose 


266       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION. 

in  the  Netherlands,  —  the  Brethren  of  the  Commoq 
Life,  —  which  undertook  the  training  of  the  younger 
clergy,  and  was  a  powerful  agent  for  the  cultivation  of 
spiritual  religion.  To  this  order  belonged  Thomas  a 
Kempis,  whose  "Imitation  of  Christ,"  it  is  said,  has 
had  a  larger  circulation  than  any  other  book  except  the 
Bible ;  akin  to  it  in  spirit,  was  a  little  treatise  called 
"  German  Theology,"  which  Luther  republished,  and 
to  which  he  acknowledged  his  deep  indebtedness.  The 
spirit  of  mysticism  had  extended  also  into  the  Domin- 
ican and  other  orders,  and  was  still  surviving  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  In  Staupitz,  the  provincial  of  the 
Augustinians,  whose  spiritual  relations  to  Luther  pre- 
pared the  way  for  his  conversion,  we  have  the  outward 
connecting  link  between  it  and  the  German  reforma- 
tion. 

But  although  the  Reformation  coul4  not  have  taken 
place  without  the  preparatory  labors  of  the  mystics, 
yet  there  were  deficiencies  in  the  theology  of  Eckart, 
of  Tauler,  or  of  Thomas  a  Kempis,  which  made  impos- 
sible for  them  the  work  which  Luther  accomplished. 
They  had  reverted  to  the  essential  principles  of  an 
earlier  theology,  overleaping,  as  it  were,  with  one 
bound  the  intervening  ages  which  separated  them  from 
Athanasius  and  other  kindred  spirits  of  the  ancient 
church.  They  talked  like  the  Stoics  and  the  Neo- 
Platonists  of  the  purification  of  the  soul  in  order  to 
spiritual  contemplation  or  to  the  union  of  the  soul  with 
God.  But  they  were  oblivious  to  the  principle  of  his- 
torical continuity;  they  did  not  take  into  account  the 
influence  of  the  training  of  the  Latin  church  through 
long  ages,  and  how  the  basis  of  that  training  had  been 
laid  in  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  with  the  guilt  which 
it  assumed  for  every  man  at  birth,  or  the  fearful  con- 


DEFICIENCIES  OF  GERMAN  MYSTICISM.    267 

sequences  which  that  primordial  crime  was  thought  to 
have  entailed  here  and  hereafter  in  separating  human- 
ity from  the  source  of  its  life.  Whether  the  Augus- 
tinian  dogma  of  original  sin  was  true  or  false,  it  had 
entered  into  the  fibre  of  mediaeval  religion,  and  could 
not  be  eliminated  by  a  mere  negation.  Any  readjust- 
ment in  theology  must  now  take  it  into  consideration 
as  if  it  were  a  part  of  the  divine  order,  and,  even  sup- 
posing it  to  be  true,  still  find  a  principle  by  which 
God  and  humanity  could  be  reunited  in  an  organic 
relationship.  It  was  here  that  Luther  diverged  from 
the  track  of  German  mysticism.  Because  he  started 
from  the  attitude  of  the  people  as  they  had  been  edu- 
cated by  the  church,  he  was  able  to  make  a  successful 
protest  against  the  abuses  of  his  age ;  he  was  powerful 
to  restore  again  the  simple  faith  of  Christ's  religion. 
While  the  mystics  had  been  preaching  the  purification 
of  the  soul  as  the  way  to  the  union  with  God,  the 
church  was  selling  pardons  or  indulgences  for  sin, 
which  never  would  have  been  bought  so  eagerly  if 
there  had  not  been  a  demand  for  them  on  the  part  of 
the  people.  To  overcome  so  gigantic  a  perversion  of 
the  spirit  of  Christianity  was  a  task  for  which  the 
mystics  were  unsuited  by  their  distance  from  the  pop- 
ular mind. 

There  were  other  deficiencies  also  in  German  mysti- 
cism. In  its  idea  of  human  nature  there  still  lingered 
a  relic  of  the  Latin  tradition,  that  it  was  an  evil  thing 
to  be  repressed  or  subdued.  It  talked  of  renunciation 
rather  than  consecration.  In  the  "  Imitation  of  Christ " 
there  still  breathed  the  close,  unhealthy  air  of  the  clois- 
ter. The  full  imitation  of  Christ  implied  directions 
of  human  aspiration  and  endeavor  which  did  not  enter 
into  the  thought  of  Thomas  a  Kempis.     There  was 


268       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

yet  a  longer  preliminary  work  to  be  done  before  theol- 
ogy and  the  Christian  life  could  revert  to  their  true 
ground  in  Christ,  in  whom  and  by  whom  and  for  whom 
are  all  things. 

n. 

The  evangelical  reformers  prepared  the  way  for 
revolt  from  church  authority.  Wycliffe,  Huss,  Savo- 
narola, and  others,  while  differing  from  each  other  in 
the  extent  to  which  they  carried  their  opposition  to 
mediaeval  doctrines,  were  alike  in  one  respect,  —  they 
had  emancipated  themselves  from  the  Latin  idea  that 
the  church  was  identical  with  the  hierarchy.  That 
idea,  the  traces  of  which  go  back  almost  to  the  time 
when  Christianity  was  planted  in  Rome,  the  develop- 
ment of  which  is  found  in  Latin  writers,  as  Clement 
of  Rome,  Tertullian,  Irenaeus,  Cyprian,  and  Augus- 
tine,— the  idea  of  the  solidarity  of  the  episcopate  hold- 
ing by  tactual  succession  from  the  apostolate,  to  which 
as  a  body  had  been  intrusted  the  graces  and  powers 
for  the  salvation  of  man,  together  with  the  "  deposit  '* 
of  the  faith,  whose  purity  it  guaranteed  by  its  contin- 
uous existence,  —  that  idea  of  the  church  which  by  a 
natural  and  necessary  process  had  developed  a  pope  as 
the  representative  of  Christian  unity  and  power,  was 
the  first  feature  of  Latin  Christianity  which  yielded 
to  the  solvent  influence  of  the  growing  intellect  and 
conscience.  That  which  had  been  the  first  to  rise  was 
the  first  to  succumb,  and  its  fall  was  equivalent  to 
freeing  the  human  mind  from  the  yoke  of  external 
authority. 

The  great  reformers  before  the  Reformation  had 
made  the  issue  clear  to  all  the  world.  Although  Wyc- 
liffe  had  been  allowed  to  die  quietly  in  his  bed,  yet  at 


THE  PREPARATION  COMPLETED.         269 

the  command  of  Pope  Martin  V.  his  grave  had  been 
opened,  his  bones  had  been  burned,  and  the  ashes 
thrown  into  the  little  river  that  flows  by  Lutterworth. 
In  the  quaint  words  of  Thomas  Fuller,  that  river 
"took  them  into  the  Severn,  Severn  into  the  narrow 
seas,  they  into  the  main  ocean,  and  thus  the  ashes  of 
Wycliffe  are  the  emblems  of  the  doctrine  which  is 
now  dispersed  all  the  world  over."  ^ 

Huss  had  been  condemned  to  death  in  1414,  at  the 
Council  of  Constance,  for  heresy,  —  a  heresy  which  lay 
not  so  much  in  the  denial  of  special  doctrines  as  in  his 
unwillingness  to  disown  the  conviction  of  conscience 
at  the  bidding  of  external  authority.  The  issue  was 
plain,  and  the  wayfaring  man  could  read  it,  that  Huss 
stood  for  the  sacred  majesty  of  conscience,  undaunted 
in  ♦the  presence  of  the  most  imposing  assemblage  that 
the  church  could  muster.  His  condemnation  was 
meant  as  a  declaration  of  the  principle  that  the  con- 
science had  no  rights  against  the  hierarchy.  In  the 
answer  of  Savonarola  from  the  stake,  when  the  bishop 
who  preached  the  customary  sermon  declared  him  cut 
off  from  the  church  militant  and  the  church  triumph- 
ant, was  the  same  issue  repeated,  —  "No,  not  from 
the  church  triumphant ;  you  cannot  cut  me  off  from 
that." 

To  all  outward  appearance  the  Latin  church  stood 
strong  as  ever  at  the  opening  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
There  was  no  sign  of  the  catastrophe  which  was  to 

^  It  has  been  generally  supposed  that  Huss,  although  indebted 
to  Wycliffe,  was  by  no  means  a  blind  disciple  of  the  English  re- 
former. How  entirely  the  Bohemian  movement  was  the  after- 
effect of  Wycliffe's  labors,  and  how  closely  Huss  had  accepted 
his  teaching,  is  shown  by  Lechler,  Johann  von  Wiclif  und  die 
Vorgeschichte  der  Reformation,  ii.  pp.  233-270. 


270       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION. 

dismember  Christendom,  the  popes  revealed  no  con- 
sciousness that  their  prestige  had  been  weakened,  and 
walked  smiling  to  their  downfall.  In  reality  all  things 
were  hollow  with  decay ;  the  mediaeval  age  was  over, 
the  preparation  for  a  new  age  was  already  accom- 
plished, and  the  world  was  waiting  for  him  who  should 
lead  out  the  people  from  the  house  of  bondage.  When 
Luther  burned  the  pope's  bull  in  1520,  he  took  the 
bold  step  toward  a  revolution  which  set  free  one  half 
of  Christendom  from  papal  subjection.  When  at  the 
Diet  of  Worms,  in  1521,  he  declared  that  he  could 
not  retract  his  writings  at  the  bidding  of  any  exter- 
nal authority,  unless  shown  that  he  was  wrong,  he  af- 
firmed the  supremacy  of  the  human  conscience  as  the 
highest  earthly  court  of  appeal;  and  so  firm  did  he 
stand  in  this  conviction  that  he  dared  to  invoke  God 
to  set  His  seal  to  the  truth  which  His  servant  pro- 
claimed. As  one  contemplates  Luther  at  the  coun- 
cil hall  in  Worms,  an  insignificant  monk,  a  man  of 
the  people  standing  before  the  highest  potentates  of 
church  and  state,  with  his  life  depending  upon  the 
answer  he  made  to  his  judges,  the  mind  travels  back 
to  a  similar  scene  when  Abelard  also  stood  before  his 
judges,  a  man  whose  intellect  was  clear,  but  whose 
moral  nature  had  been  hurt  by  the  sins  of  his  earlier 
life.  Between  the  two  men  whose  attitude  was  so  sim- 
ilar, between  the  appeal  of  the  one  to  the  pope,  and 
the  other  to  the  conscience,  lay  the  distance  of  nearly 
four  hundred  years,  —  so  long  had  it  taken  for  God  to 
educate  a  race  to  understand  and  to  maintain  its  high 
prerogative. 

The  events  of  the  sixteenth  century  have  been  too 
often  regarded  as  constituting  a  break  in  history.  But 
to  the  eye  of  thought  reviewing  the  course  of  history 


THE   COMING  OF  LUTHER.  271 

the  continuity  remains  unbroken.  Luther  was  but  the 
child  of  the  ages  preceding ;  the  Protestant  revolution 
was  the  natural  and  orderly  sequence  of  a  long  course 
of  preparation.  It  was  indispensable  indeed  for  a  time 
that  men  should  regard  the  Reformation  as  break- 
ing with  the  past,  in  order  that  they  might  estimate 
more  deeply  the  meaning  of  the  truth  which  had  been 
revealed  to  them,  and  secure  its  firmer  establishment. 
So,  also,  in  the  ancient  church,  there  had  appeared  a 
violent  antagonism  to  Judaism,  and  to  heathen  art, 
which  served  the  purpose  of  making  more  clear  and 
emphatic  the  vital  difference  between  Christianity  and 
other  religions.  In  the  turmoil  of  an  age  of  transi- 
tion it  is  not  always  given  to  the  leaders  to  discern 
the  route  by  which  they  have  been  led.  Luther  en- 
tered upon  the  inheritance  of  Wycliffe  and  of  Huss, 
and  still  further  was  he  indebted  to  the  spirit  of  Ger- 
man mysticism.  But  his  greatness  was  also  peculiarly 
his  own.  He  was  not  so  much  a  theologian  as  a  man 
who  afforded  in  his  own  rich  nature,  unveiled  so  com- 
pletely before  his  age,  the  materials  for  theology.  His 
life  was  a  type  of  humanity  for  his  own  and  succeed- 
ing ages.  He  lived  through  the  religious  experience 
of  the  mediaeval  dispensation  before  he  came  to  his 
knowledge  of  a  higher  birthright.  Viewed  from  the 
standing  point  of  a  formal  theology,  he  is  full  of  in- 
consistencies and  contradictions,  and  even  dangerous 
errors.  But  regarded  simply  as  a  man  with  his  rich 
endowment  of  human  instincts  and  yearnings,  to  which 
he  gave  the  freest,  most  unguarded  expression,  he  was 
in  himself  a  revelation  of  the  human  consciousness  in 
its  freshness  and  simplicity,  with  which  a  complete 
theology  must  come  to  terms.  It  is  because  the  ex- 
plosive utterances  of  his  vigorous,  tumultuous  nature 


272       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

have  been  weighed  as  if  they  were  carefully  formed 
dogmatic  statements,  that  Luther  has  been  so  often 
misunderstood  by  Protestant  as  well  as  by  Koman 
Catholic  writers. 

It  is  a  popular  mistake  to  regard  the  Reformation 
as  having  for  its  main  object  the  correction  of  abuses 
which  had  grown  up  in  the  church.  While  some  jus- 
tify the  work  of  Luther  by  exposing  these  abuses  in 
detail,  others  have  tried  to  show  that  the  abuses  were 
not  so  great  as  had  been  supposed,  or  that  some  things 
which  the  reformers  regarded  as  such  were  in  reality 
customs  which  are  consonant  with  reason  or  with 
piety ;  and  still  a  third  class,  defending  the  Latin 
church  against  the  assaults  of  Protestantism,  have 
boldly  affirmed  that  there  were  no  abuses  whatever  in 
the  sixteenth  century  which  called  for  protest  or  re- 
form, —  that  the  movement  of  Luther  from  beginning 
to  end  was  the  work  of  an  evil  will  setting  itself 
against  divine  authority. 

Luther,  it  is  true,  began  his  work  as  a  reformer  by 
opposition  to  the  principle  and  the  practice  of  indul- 
gences, in  which  he  saw  not  only  a  perversion  of  the 
gospel  of  Christ,  but  the  source  of  a  vicious  influence 
injurious  to  ordinary  morality.  The  doctrine  of  in- 
dulgences as  taught  by  Lombard  or  Aquinas  may  dif- 
fer from  the  belief  regarding  their  operation  which 
was  preached  by  a  Tetzel,  and  received  by  the  people 
in  the  sixteenth  century.  But  the  fact  cannot  be  ob- 
scured that  indulgences  were  then  regarded  at  Rome 
by  those  high  in  authority  as  the  best  available  means 
of  replenishing  the  papal  treasury,  whose  resources, 
as  it  was  alleged,  were  heavily  taxed  in  building  St. 
Peter's  cathedral,  or  in  carrying  on  the  war  with  the 
Turks.    The  Latin  church,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  saw  no 


ADDRESS   TO   THE   GERMAN  NOBILITY.     273 

objection  then,  and  indeed  has  never  yet  been  able  to 
see  any,  why  people  should  not  be  made  to  pay  for 
spiritual  privileges,  or,  if  they  value  God's  pardon,  why 
they  should  not  be  called  upon  to  express  their  sense 
of  its  value  in  some  such  tangible  form  as  money. 
The  practice  of  selling  indulgences  by  which  were  re- 
mitted the  penalties  of  sin,  whether  enacted  by  God  or 
the  church,  —  for  the  two  were  practically  identified, 
—  grew  out  of  the  disposition  to  guard  zealously  the 
"  deposit "  intrusted  to  the  hierarchy.  From  such  a 
point  of  view,  there  was  reason  to  fear  that  if  people 
were  not  called  upon  to  pay  for  God's  pardon,  they 
would  not  attach  to  it  vmy  exalted  importance. 

Luther  saw  from  a  very  early  stage  in  his  career  as 
a  reformer,  that  it  was  not  against  abuses  in  them- 
selves alone  that  he  was  waging  his  warfare,  but 
against  the  principle  from  which  they  flowed,  —  the 
Latin  idea  of  the  church,  by  which  was  maintained 
and  justified  what  the  enlightened  conscience  of  Chris- 
tendom was  beginning  to  regard  with  abhorrence  and 
contempt.  In  his  "  Address  to  the  German  Nobility," 
written  in  the  year  1520,  only  three  years  after  the 
posting  of  the  theses,  he  had  come  to  see  that  the  root 
of  all  that  was  obnoxious  in  the  traditional  Chris- 
tianity was  the  assumption  that  the  church  consisted 
primarily  in  the  hierarchy  or  episcopate,  and  as  such 
was  commissioned  to  teach  and  rule  the  world.  In  the 
"  Address  to  the  German  Nobility "  we  have  at  last 
the  direct  and  final  answer  to  Tertullian  and  Irenseus, 
Cyprian  and  Augustine.^  The  church  does  not  con- 
sist in  the  episcopate.  No  privileges,  no  "deposit," 
no  trusts  are  assigned  by  God  to  the  bishops  which  do 

"^  An  kaiserlkhe  Majestdt  und  den  christl.  Adel  deutscher  Nation, 
in  Luther's  Sammtliche  Schri/ten  ed.  Waleh,  x. 
18 


274       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION. 

not  also  belong  by  right  to  every  Christian  man.  Or- 
dmation  is  but  a  human  arrangement,  by  which  the 
divine  prerogatives  lodged  in  the  church  as  the  con- 
gregation of  faithful  men  are  delegated  to  a  few  to 
exercise  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  all.  If 
a  small  number  of  Christians  were  to  find  themselves 
in  a  desert  without  a  regularly  ordained  priest,  and 
with  no  means  of  obtaining  one,  it  would  be  only  the 
exercise  of  their  divine  and  natural  right  if  they  were 
to  set  apart  one  of  their  number  for  the  office.  Such  an 
one  would  just  as  truly  preach  and  absolve  and  admin- 
ister the  sacraments  as  if  he  had  been  consecrated  by 
all  the  bishops  in  Christendom.  Between  laymen  and 
clergy  there  is  no  other  difference  than  that  of  func- 
tion or  office  ;  the  highest  dignity  which  can  be  con- 
ferred on  man  is  common  to  both,  —  that  of  belonging 
to  the  body  of  Christ,  and  being  every  one  members 
one  of  another. 

But  Luther  could  not  so  successfully  have  attacked 
and  overthrown  the  mediaeval  conception  of  the  church 
had  he  not  grasped  with  singular  strength  and  clear- 
ness another  principle,  namely,  that  there  is  no  inher- 
ent and  essential  difference  between  religious  and  what 
are  called  secular  things.^  The  dualism  which  the 
mediaeval  church  had  inherited  from  ancient  Latin 
fathers,  which  had  even  found  expression  in  the  de- 
cisions of  general  councils,  sharply  distinguishing  be- 
tween the  divine  and  the  human  as  incompatible  with 
each  other,  was  also  at  last  met  by  a  principle  which, 
in  proportion  as  its  significance  was  apprehended, 
would  reverse  the  thought  of  ages.  The  belief  that 
the  divine  and  the  human  were  foreign  to  each  other 
had  led  to  distinctions  between  clergy  and  people,  be- 
1  PTcrifce,  ed.  Walch,  X.  pp.  302,  303. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  REFORMATION,       275 

fcween  church  and  state,  between  nature  and  grace,  and 
had  been  the  underlying  sentiment  which  supported 
the  aspiration  of  the  popes  to  set  themselves  above 
kings  and  princes.  Luther  taught  that  the  secular 
power  was  divine,  and  directly  ordained  by  God  with- 
out papal  mediation ;  that  civil  or  secular  functions  do 
not  differ  in  kind  from  those  called  religious ;  that  even 
a  shoemaker,  a  blacksmith,  or  a  peasant,  were  alike  set 
apart  with  bishops  and  priests  to  a  calling  that  was 
sacred,  inasmuch  as  all  kinds  of  service  minister  to 
the  well-being  of  the  community  and  knit  together 
the  members  of  the  one  body  in  a  closer  communion 
and  fellowship. 

And  still  another  principle,  closely  connected  with 
the  preceding,  was  set  forth  by  Luther  before  he  pro- 
ceeded to  enumerate  to  the  German  nobility  the  abuses 
which  stood  in  need  of  correction.^  He  calls  it  one  of 
the  walls  by  which  the  church  had  intrenched  itself 
apart  from  the  Christian  community  that  the  Bible 
had  been  regarded  as  a  "  deposit "  in  the  hands  of  the 
episcopate  or  hierarchy,  and  that  to  it  alone,  or  speak- 
ing through  its  mouth-piece,  the  papacy,  belonged  the 
right  of  determining  what  was  the  meaning  of  the 
divine  revelation.  If,  as  Luther  argued,  the  laity 
were  on  an  equality  with  the  clergy,  then  it  must  be 
also  admitted  that  they  have  the  faith,  the  spirit,  and 
the  mind  of  Christ,  and  are  entitled  to  interpret  the 
Scriptures  for  themselves.  It  was  of  them  that  it  had 
been  said,  they  should  he  all  taught  of  God  ;  to  them 
Christ  had  referred  when  He  said,  Neither  pray  I  for 
these  alone^  hut  for  them  also  which  shall  helieve  on 
me  through  their  word.  Such  was  the  original  idea 
in  Luther's  mind  of  what  was  afterwards  designated 
1  Werke,  ed.  Walch,  x.  p.  309. 


276       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION, 

as  private  judgment  —  the  affirmation  of  the  Christian 
consciousness  as  the  basis  of  certitude  for  Christian 
belief.  From  a  historical  point  of  view  it  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  first  emphatic  protest  coming  from  the 
heart  of  the  church  against  the  argument  of  Tertullian 
in  his  "  Prescription  of  Heretics,"  or  of  Irenseus  ap- 
pealing to  a  tradition  of  whose  purity  the  episcopate 
was  the  guarantee,  or  of  Augustine  asserting  against 
human  reason  the  divine  prerogatives  of  the  episcopal 
office  to  teach  infallible  truth. ^ 

But  the  assertion  of  great  principles  like  these,  far 
reaching  as  they  are  in  the  full  extent  of  their  appli- 
cation, does  not  constitute  Luther's  most  distinctive 
work  as  a  religious  reformer.  His  title  to  greatness 
as  a  spiritual  hero  rests  upon  his  proclamation  of  the 
doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  or,  in  other  words,  his 
readjustment,  first  for  himself,  and  then  for  others,  of 

'  The  most  characteristic  of  the  thoughts  and  beliefs  in  which, 
according  to  Bunsen,  all  the  reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century 
agreed,  are  summed  up  by  him  in  the  five  following  propo- 
sitions :  — 

1.  "  The  congregation  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word,  the  whole 
company  of  faithful  people,  and  not  the  clergy  alone,  constitute 
the  church. 

2.  "  The  whole  church  as  thus  defined  is  the  deposit  of  man's 
consciousness  of  God  in  the  public  worship  of  Him. 

3.  "  The  collective  community  in  its  national  capacity  ought  to 
represent  a  people  of  God. 

4.  "  There  is  no  difference  between  spiritual  or  religious  acts 
and  secular  acts. 

6.  "  A  personal  faith  is  the  condition  of  inward  peace  with  God. 
But  this  personal  faith  necessarily  involves  free  convictions,  and 
therefore  free  inquiry  and  free  speculation  on  the  results  thereof, 
though  carried  on  under  a  sense  of  responsibility  to  God  ;  and 
this  again  presupposes  freedom  of  conscience  and  thought."  — 
God  in  History f  vol.  iii.  pp.  19&-201. 


MEANING  OF  JUSTIFICA  TION  BY  FAITH.     277 

the  conception  of  man's  relation  to  God.  In  the  con- 
flicts of  his  inner  life,  —  the  bitter  struggles  through 
which  he  passed  before  he  attained  that  for  which  his 
soul  was  hungering,  —  he  stands  for  humanity  itseK  as 
it  had  been  left  by  the  tutelage  of  the  Latin  church ; 
made  to  feel  his  need  of  Christ,  but  not  having  yet 
known  Him  after  the  spirit ;  stricken  with  a  sense  of 
sin  and  guilt,  laboring  under  the  consciousness  of  sep- 
aration from  God,  and  yet  demanding  an  absolute  asn 
surance  of  His  pardon  and  reconciliation  with  Him  in 
the  inmost  depth  of  his  being  beyond  the  possibility  of 
uncertainty  or  doubt.  His  experience  in  the  monas- 
tery at  Erfurt,  where  he  put  to  the  test  the  mediaeval 
method  of  asceticism,  confession,  and  penance,  failed 
to  bring  him  the  conviction  of  forgiveness.  Indeed, 
this  was  not  its  intention  or  aim.  The  Latin  church 
did  not  profess  to  impart  certitude  of  salvation  to  her 
children.  It  preferred  to  retain  them  in  a  condition 
of  hope  which  would  stimulate  to  activity,  but  the 
certainty  of  their  acceptance  with  God  could  not  be 
known  till  life  was  over.  When  the  church  was  gird- 
ing itself  to  its  distinctive  task  in  the  beginning  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  Pope  Gregory  the  Great  had  re- 
plied to  a  correspondent  who  demanded  the  assurance 
that  her  sins  were  forgiven,  that  such  assurance  was 
difficult  and  unprofitable.^  In  uncertainty  and  self- 
distrust  the  soul  should  remain  as  its  normal  atti- 
tude till  the  end  of  life  revealed  the  final  result.  The 
idea  of  probation,  as  thus  defined,  became  the  ruling 
principle  of  the  church,  and  had  been  known  in  Latin 
theology  as  the  conjectura  moralis.  As  a  principle  it 
was  not  out  of  harmony  with  the  mediaeval  practice 
of  asceticism,  by  which  the  soul  might  increase  the 
1  Neander,  Church  History^  v.  p.  200. 


278       THEOLOGY  OP  THE  REFORMATION, 

probability,  but  not  secure  the  certainty,  of  its  sal- 
vation.^ 

After  this  confidence,  however,  Luther  was  strug- 
gling in  his  earlier  years,  and  the  attainment  of  the 
principle  by  which  it  was  gained  constituted  his  con- 
version. In  his  later  life,  when  he  saw  more  clearly 
the  nature  of  the  struggle  through  which  he  had 
passed,  he  described  the  process  in  unmistakable 
terms.  He  then  recognized  that  his  thought  about 
God  had  imdergone  a  change.  When  he  first  read 
the  words  of  St.  Paul,  so  he  tells  us,  as  given  in  the 
Latin  Vulgate,  the  justice  of  God  is  revealed  in  Him, 
— justitia  Dei  in  eo  revelatur^  —  he  hated  the  expres- 
sion because  he  misunderstood  its  meaning.  "  I  said 
to  myself  :  '  Is  it  not  then  enough  that  wretched  sin- 
ners, already  eternally  damned  for  original  sin,  should 

1  How  firmly  the  mediaeval  church  was  wedded  to  this  view  of 
the  Christian  life  was  shown  anew  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  where, 
in  opposition  to  the  Lutheran  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  a 
decree  was  put  forth  condemning  the  "  vain  confidence  of  her- 
etics." Sess.  vi.  c.  9.  "  No  one  can  know  with  a  certainty  of 
faith  which  cannot  be  subject  to  mistake,  that  he  has  obtained 
the  grace  of  God."  Neither  Augustine,  Luther,  nor  Calvin,  held  </ 
the  doctrine  of  probation.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  the  doc- 
trine of  justification,  as  Luther  propounded  it,  involving  as  it  did 
the  fiducia  or  certainty  of  acceptance  with  God,  was  a  protest 
against  probation.    The  idea  of  probation  is  clearly  incompatible 

I  with  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  election.  The  retrogression  from 
Calvinism,  as  its  foimder  proclaimed  it,  to  the  medijeval  idea  of 
life  as  a  probation,  was  recorded  at  the  famous  Westminster  As- 

V  sembly  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Cf .  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
Discussions  on  Philosophy  and  Literature,  pp.  505  fP.  In  his  essay 
on  Luther,  Canon  Mozley  has  selected  this  point  for  his  strongest 
animadversion.  Luther,  in  his  view,  made  his  great  mistake  in 
not  being  willing  to  walk  in  the  subdued  and  uncertain  twilight 
in  which  the  mediaeval  church  retained  humanity  ;  he  attempted 
a  flight  beyond  the  reach  of  man  in  this  world. 


WHY  THE  DOCTRINE   SEEMS  OBSCURE,    279 

be  overwhebned  with  so  many  calamities '  by  the  de- 
crees of  the  Decalogue,  but  God  must  further  add 
misery  to  misery  by  His  gospel,  menacing  us  even 
there  with  His  justice  and  His  anger?'  It  was  thus 
the  trouble  of  my  conscience  carried  me  away,  and  I 
always  came  back  to  the  same  passage.  At  last  I  per- 
ceived that  the  justice  of  God  is  that  whereby  with 
the  blessing  of  God  the  just  man  lives,  that  is  to  say, 
faith.  .  .  .  Thereupon  I  felt  as  if  born  again,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  as  though  heaven's  gates  stood  full  open, 
and  that  I  was  joyfully  entering  therein."  ^  In  other 
words,  the  "  justice  "  of  the  Latin  ViUgate  when  un- 
derstood as  righteousness  became  the  most  attractive 
thing  that  the  soul  could  know  ;  it  constituted  the 
bond  between  man  and  God,  that  man  by  the  insight 
of  faith  was  able  to  read  the  inmost  nature  of  God  re- 
vealed in  Christ,  and  to  find  in  the  divine  nature  that 
which  the  human  nature  was  struggling  with  all  its 
powers  to  attain. 

But  the  gospel,  according  to  Luther's  new  reading 
of  it,  contained  a  stiU  more  marvelous  truth.  Al- 
though man  was  a  sinner,  and  fell  infinitely  below 
the  divine  ideal  of  his  destiny,  yet  such  was  the  good- 
ness of  God,  that  those  who  tlirough  faith  in  Christ  as 
manifesting  God's  righteousness  had  come  to  love  and 
to  follow  Him,  were  in  God's  sight  already  sharers  in 
Christ's  deified  humanity,  they  stood  before  God  not 
merely  clothed  in  the  feeble  and  meagre  righteousness 
which  they  could  call  their  own,  but  in  the  glory  of 
Christ's  righteousness  imputed  to  them.  So  long  as 
a  man  looked  away  from  himself  to  Christ  and  His 
righteousness,  he  was  not  only  in  the  way  to  making 
that  righteousness  his  own,  but  he  already  shone  with 

I  Miehelet,  Memoires  de  Luther,    Merits  par  lui-meme,  L  p.  26. 


• 


280       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

the  reflected  righteousness  of  Christ,  in  virtue  of  the 
mysterious  oneness  which  unites  Christ  to  all  believers. 
And  this  was  only  an  endeavor  to  regain  the  truth 
which  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Athanasius  had  as- 
serted when  they  spoke  of  humanity  as  having  been 
deified  in  Christ,  and  of  an  actual  redemption  already 
accomplished  in  which  all  men  shared  by  their  consti- 
tutional relation  to  the  head  of  the  race. 

Such  was  Luther's  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith. 
He  arrived  at  his  conviction  by  processes  which  have 
now  become  unfamiliar,  and  the  language  which  he 
used  often  serves  to  conceal  his  thought  from  the 
modern  inquirer.  It  was  his  misfortune  that  he  stud- 
ied St.  Paid's  Epistle  to  the  Romans  too  much  under 
the  guidance  of  Augustine's  commentary,  instead  of 
reading  the  gospel  as  it  is  condensed  in  one  brief  il- 
lustration given  by  Christ  Himself  in  the  story  of  the 
Prodigal  Son.  What  Luther  was  trying  to  express, 
what  flashes  out  in  his  occasional  remarks  interspersed 
amid  his  technical  language,  was  nothing  else  than  the 
principle  contained  in  that  most  complete,  most  beau- 
tiful of  all  the  parables  of  Christ.  The  story  of  the 
prodigal  reveals  how  man  in  all  his  sinfulness  and  deg- 
radation and  guilt  is  yet  received  into  the  divine  favor, 
and  treated  as  though  he  were  a  son  that  had  never 
wandered  from  the  father's  house.  But  when  Luther 
used  the  phrase  "justification  by  faith,"  he  was  bor- 
rowing a  figure  of  speech  from  St.  Paul,  by  which  the 
great  apostle  sought  to  convey  to  the  legal  mind  of 
the  Roman  people  how  it  was  possible  that  a  guilty 
person  might  be  acquitted  at  the  bar  of  infinite  jus- 
tice. The  Latin  mind  naturally  fastened  upon  an  il- 
lustration so  apt,  and  the  word  "  justification  "  became, 
like  "  grace,"  one  of  the  current  phrases  of  Latin  the- 


JUSTIFICATION  BY  FAITH  ONLY,  281 

ology.  Instead  of  a  figure  of  speech,  an  adaptation  of 
language  for  a  special  end,  it  was  made  the  comer- 
stone  of  a  system  of  theology  by  the  successors  of 
Luther,  and  its  very  significance  perverted  and  lost  in 
the  effort  to  follow  out  the  figure  to  its  logical  re- 
sults. 

But  with  Luther  the  reality  was  greater  than  the 
now  almost  obsolete  language  in  which  it  was  clothed 
would  seem  to  convey.  The  doctrine  of  justification 
by  faith  implied  that  man  stood  to  infinite  Deity  in 
the  closest  and  most  endearing  relationship.  It  car- 
ried with  it  the  positive  assurance,  the  certainty  (Jidw- 
cid)  of  ultimate  salvation  from  sin  to  holiness.  Every 
man  by  the  power  of  a  true  faith  could  henceforth 
know  himself  as  a  son  of  God,  and  the  intimacy  of 
true  sonship  gave  rise  in  the  soul  to  an  experience  of 
blessedness  and  peace  which  the  storms  of  doubt  could 
not  weaken  or  destroy.  The  Romanists  wished  to  add 
works  to  faith  as  the  instrument  of  justification,  but 
that  would  have  changed  the  whole  complexion  of 
the  truth,  and  brought  back  again  the  error  which 
Luther  was  resisting.  It  was  justification  by  faith 
only,  just  as  the  prodigal  was  received  into  divine 
favor  by  the  faith  which  led  him  to  arise  and  go  to 
his  father.  In  the  strength  of  this  mighty  conviction 
Luther  stood  with  a  majesty  unsurpassed,  confronting 
the  world  that  had  been,  and  that  which  was  to  be.  It 
made  no  difference  to  him  that  he  stood  alone,  opposed 
by  all  the  sacred  traditions  of  Latin  Christendom 
running  so  far  back  in  the  past  that  they  seemed  co- 
eval with  Christianity  itself.  He  stood  before  his 
age  with  the  uplifted  open  Bible,  and  the  truth  which 
he  there  read  so  corresponded  with  the  life  within 
him,  that  it  made  no  difference  if,  as  he  said,  a  thou- 


282       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

sand  Augustines,  or  a  thousand  Cyprians,  or  a  thou- 
sand councils  were  against  him.  In  such  a  spectacle 
as  this  we  read  a  testimony  to  the  divinely  endowed 
consciousness  of  human  nature  which  has  no  equal  in 
history.  Compared  with  this  testimony  to  the  real- 
ity of  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul,  the  contradictions, 
the  inconsistencies,  the  mistakes  of  Luther  weigh  as 
a  feather  in  the  balance. 

The  sixteenth  century  was  a  period  of  intellectual 
confusion.  When  a  great  revolution  is  in  process  of 
accomplishment  there  is  little  room  for  calm,  dispas- 
sionate examination  of  intellectual  formulas.  No  phi- 
losophers arose  after  the  decline  of  scholasticism  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  until  the  reformation  period  was 
over.  The  turmoil  was  unfavorable  to  the  interest  of 
scholarship,  of  which  Erasmus  stood  as  the  represen- 
tative. To  look  for  an  intelligent  criticism  of  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Latin  church  at  the  hands  of  Luther  or 
any  of  the  reformers,  is  to  seek  for  the  impossible.  In 
retaining  some  or  rejecting  others  they  were  governed 
by  impulses  and  instincts  which  were  often  healthy 
and  true,  while  at  the  same  time  they  were  still  to  a 
large  extent  unconsciously  under  the  influence  of  that 
tradition  which  they  professed  to  discard  as  having  no 
authority  in  the  light  of  Scripture. 

With  this  qualification,  it  becomes  an  interesting 
task  to  review  the  opinions  of  Luther.  He  rejected 
the  Latin  idea  of  the  church,  and  fell  back  upon  the 
earlier  and  higher  view,  that  it  was  composed  of  the 
body  of  Christian  believers.  The  form  of  ecclesias- 
tical organization  which  ministered  to  the  spiritual  wel- 
fare was  a  matter  of  indifference,  so  long  as  it  met  the 
need  of  holding  men  together  in  Christian  communion 
and  fellowship.     The  sanction  of  the  clergy  lay  in  no 


OTHER   OPINIONS  OF  LUTHEH/    y  "^283 

gift  communicated  by  an  external  authoritjL  ijmt  was 
derived  from  the  body  to  which  it  ministeriirfr^  its 
representative.     The  episcopate  had  been  so  iti\^Vetl         -^^\ 
in  the  Latin  theory  of  the  hierarchy,  that  it  seema  to/p  Jlrr   ^ 


have  been  spontaneously  dropped  without  discussion 
an  unnecessary  excrescence  out  of  harmony  with  the 
new  order.  At  a  later  time,  when  the  signs  of  a  reac- 
tion against  the  Reformation  were  evident,  and  when 
the  reformers  themselves  were  growing  timid  in  the 
presence  of  the  increasing  disorder,  there  were  ex- 
pressed some  regrets  that  so  much  concession  had 
been  made  to  the  democratic  principle  in  the  chm*ch, 
and  that  the  episcopate  had  not  been  retained  as  an 
efficient  means  of  centralizing  authority.  But  even 
the  temporizing  Melancthon  was  careful  to  specify 
that  it  should  be  regarded,  if  restored,  as  a  thing  of 
human  origin,  or,  according  to  the  mediaeval  distinc- 
tion, Jwre  humano,  not  jure  divino}  With  regard  to 
priestly  powers  in  what  had  been  called  the  sacrament 
of  penance,  Luther  attached  importance  to  the  decla- 
ration of  absolution,  but  thought  the  confession  or 
enumeration  of  special  sins  unnecessary  and  even  in- 
jurious. But  the  power  to  make  the  declaration  of 
God's  absolution  belonged  as  a  right  to  every  Chris- 

^  For  a  list  of  passages  bearing  upon  this  point  see  Gieseler, 
Eccles.  Hist..,  iv.  p.  529.  The  words  of  Melancthon  are,  —  Utinani, 
utinam  possim  non  quidem  dominationem  conjirmare,  sed  adminuttra- 
tionem  restituere  Episcoporum.  "  It  is  evident,"  says  the  Memo- 
rial of  the  Wittenberg  and  other  divines  to  the  Diet  at  Smalcald, 
1540,  "  that  the  churches  need  to  be  visited  by  those  high  in  office, 
else  the  churches  will  not  be  long  honored,  and  pastors  will  be 
evil  treated  in  villages."  There  would  have  been  no  difficulty  in 
securing  bishops,  or  what  is  called  the  "  succession,"  had  the  sen- 
timent of  the  church  or  the  policy  of  the  princes  been  in  favor  of 
their  restoration. 


284       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION, 

tian  man,  in  virtue  of  the  universal  priesthood  of  be- 
lievers, and  its  exercise  by  the  ministry  was  a  matter 
of  human  administration.^ 

A  peculiar  interest  attaches  to  Luther's  treatment 
of  Scripture,  because  underlying  it  may  be  discerned 
a  grasp  of  a  larger  view  of  the  nature  and  method  of 
divine  revelation  than  was  afterwards  held  by  the 
common  consent  of  the  reformed  churches.  He  seem? 
indeed  to  have  united  in  a  living  combination  the 
apparently  contradictory  positions  of  the  evangelical 
reformers  and  the  mystics :  with  the  one  he  upholds 
Scripture  as  an  external  and  absolute  authority,  the 
very  Word  of  God,  the  charter  and  constitution  of  the 
church ;  and  with  the  other  he  exalts  the  divine  con- 
sciousness in  man  as  that  by  which  Scripture  is  known 
and  judged  to  be  from  God.  The  Bible  is  divine  be- 
cause it  is  the  mirror  in  which  is  reflected  the  experi^ 
ence  of  humanity  in  its  highest  exaltation,  under  the 
influence  of  a  divine  Spirit.  No  amount  of  hostile 
criticism  could  shake  a  man's  faith  in  Scripture  whose 
reverence  for  it  was  based  on  such  a  foundation.  In 
this  way  may  be  explained  Luther's  extraordinary 
freedom  in  criticising  the  contents  of  the  Bible,  a  free- 
dom and  boldness  which  was  a  source  of  mor4:ification 
to  his  successors,  which  they  endeavored  to  cover  over 
and  forget. 

The  following  specimens  of  Luther's  biblical  criti- 
cism, were  their  source  unknown,  would  appear  to 
some  like  the  destructive  attacks  of  modern  rational- 
ists. In  regard  to  the  Pentateuch,  Luther  thought  it 
a  matter  of  indifference  whether  or  not  it  was  written 
by  Moses.  The  Book  of  Kings  he  spoke  of  as  excel- 
lent,—  a  hundred  times  better  than  the  Chronicles. 
1  Gieseler,  ibid.  p.  640. 


LUTHER'S  BIBLICAL   CRITICISMS.  285 

Jeremiah,  as  a  prophet,  was  much  inferior  to  Isaiah. 
None  of  the  discourses  of  the  prophets  were  regularly 
committed  to  writing  at  the  time,  but  were  collected 
subsequently  by  their  disciples  and  hearers,  and  thus 
the  complete  collection  was  formed.  In  the  Gospel  of 
St.  Luke  the  Saviour's  passion  is  best  described ;  but 
the  Gospel  of  St.  John  is  the  true,  pure  gospel,  the 
chief  of  the  gospels,  because  it  contains  the  greatest 
portion  of  Christ's  sayings ;  it  is  far  preferable  to  the 
other  gospels,  "  the  unique,  tender,  true,  main  gospel.'* 
Even  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  are  higher  in  authority 
than  the  Gospels  of  St.  Matthew,  St.  Mark,  and  St. 
Luke,  for  they  deal  with  faith  in  Christ  and  how  it 
justifies,  while  the  latter  are  mainly  occupied  with 
His  works  and  miracles.  In  a  word,  St.  John's  Gos- 
pel with  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  especially  those  to  the 
Komans,  Galatians,  and  Ephesians,  and  also  the  first 
Epistles  of  St.  John  and  St.  Peter,  these  contain  and 
teach  all  that  it  is  necessary  to  know,  even  if  one  were 
never  to  see  any  other  books.  Luther  did  not  regard 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  nor  that  of  St.  James,  to 
be  of  apostolic  origin,  and  the  latter  he  characterized 
as  an  epistle  of  straw,  with  no  trace  of  the  gospel  in 
it.  He  estimated  very  lightly  the  Epistle  of  St.  Jude, 
and  thought  it  was  a  copy  of  the  Second  Ei)istle  of 
St.  Peter.  He  could  detect  no  trace  in  the  Book  of 
Revelation  of  its  having  been  inspired  by  the  Holy 
Ghost.  The  causes  which  led  him  to  reject  it  from 
the  canon  were  its  visions,  whose  obscurity  was  in 
contrast  with  the  clearness  of  a  genuine  revelation  ; 
many  of  the  church  fathers  had  long  ago  rejected  it ; 
Christ  is  not  presented  there  as  it  was  the  duty  of  an 
apostle  to  recognize  and  teach  Him.^  In  harmony 
^  Lather's  biblical  criticisms  are  found  in  the  various  prefaces 


286       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

also  with  Luther's  attitude  towards  Scripture  was  his 
estimate  of  miracles.  They  had,  to  his  mind,  a  very 
subordinate  value  as  evidence  of  the  truth  of  Christ's 
teaching.  "  External  miracles,"  he  said,  "  are  the 
apples  and  nuts  which  God  gave  to  the  childish 
world  as  playthings ;  we  no  longer  have  need  of 
them." 

Luther  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  constructive,  sys- 
tematic theologian ;  no  ruling  idea  gives  symmetry 
and  completeness  to  his  thought ;  in  many  of  his  posi- 
tions he  retained  the  old  scholastic  phraseology.  He 
did  not  combat  the  doctritie  of  original  sin,  which, 
as  interpreted  by  Augustine,  had  colored  the  entire 
teaching  and  cultus  of  the  Latin  church.  In  the 
prominence  which  he  gives  to  the  agency  of  the 
devil  may  be  seen  the  expression  of  his  desire  to 
relieve  Deity  of  all  responsibility  for  human  evil; 
but  he  makes  no  effort  to  define  the  relationship  of 
Satan  to  God  in  any  formal  way.  It  must  be  ad- 
mitted, also,  that  Luther  denied,  in  extreme  and  even 
violent  language,  the  freedom  of  the  human  will,  in 
order  to  assert  the  activity  of  God  and  man's  absolute 
dependence  upon  Him.  Erasmus,  who  was  carried 
away  by  no  overpowering  impulse,  selected  this  point 
as  the  weak  spot  for  an  attack  upon  Luther's  position. 
But  there  was  an  element  in  this  denial  of  human 
liberty,  made  alike  by  all  the  reformers,  which  Eras- 
mus did  not  appreciate,  —  an  element  which  grew  out 
of  the  very  situation  of  reform.  In  order  to  snatch 
men  from  the  servitude  of  the  church  it  was  necessary 

to  his  commentaries  on  the  books  of  Scripture,  Werke,  ed.  Walch  ; 
also  in  his  Table-TalTc,  translated  by  Hazlitt,  and  in  the  fuller 
edition  of  the  Tischreden,  by  Bindseil.  Compare,  also,  Michelet 
and  Hagenbach's  History  of  the  R^ormation. 


REFORMATION  IN  SWITZERLAND.         287 

to  bring  them  into  bondage  to  God ;  the  denial  of 
human  liberty  meant  the  profound  conviction  that 
God  Himself  was  acting  and  speaking  in  His  human 
agents,  that  they  were  under  the  spell  of  an  Almighty 
Spirit  which  they  were  powerless  to  resist.  The  con- 
cession of  human  liberty,  as  in  the  Latin  church,  had 
carried  with  it  subjection  to  the  power  of  an  earthly 
priesthood  ;  to  assert  the  absolute  subjection  of  the 
will  to  God  was  to  bring  men  into  that  servitude 
which  is  perfect  freedom. 


in. 

The  Reformation  in  Switzerland  was  independent  of 
the  movement  led  by  Luther ;  it  began  earlier,  it  fol- 
lowed a  leader  widely  different  in  character  from  the 
hero  of  Germany,  it  originated  from  another  impetus 
than  that  which  impelled  Germany  to  revolt,  it  was 
based  on  a  different  principle  and  reached  in  theology 
a  different  result.  WhUe  Luther  and  Zwingle  were 
both  indebted  to  the  influence  of  mysticism,  yet  that 
which  can  be  traced  only  as  latent  in  Luther's  mind, 
or  may  be  implied  but  is  not  clearly  stated  in  the 
doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  —  the  idea  of  the 
divine  immanence,  —  was  the  fundamental  principle 
with  Zwingle,  giving  unity  and  consistency  to  his  life 
as  well  as  to  his  theology.  Luther  was  roused  to  in- 
dignation by  the  practice  of  indulgences,  in  which  he 
saw  exposed  for  sale  the  free  forgiveness  of  God ; 
Zwingle  was  moved  to  action  by  the  crowd  who  came 
to  worship  the  miracle-working  Madonna  r^t  Einsie^ 
deln.  The  one  was  seeking  to  find  a  true  basis  for  the 
distinctively  religious  life,  the  other  for  a  principle 
that  would  harmonize  man  on  all  sides  of  his  nature 


288       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION, 

and  in  all  departments  of  his  activity  with  a  divine 
purpose  in  the  creation. 

The  idea  of  Deity  in  Zwingle's  thought  is  that  of  a 
being  whose  indwelling  life  constitutes  the  essence  and 
the  reality  of  all  things,  who  is  not  only  infinite  wis- 
dom but  infinite  love.  The  creation  had  its  origin  in 
the  divine  love;  humanity  was  called  into  existence 
that  it  might  rejoice  in  God ;  all  the  grades  and  ranges 
of  existence  are  so  many  revelations  of  the  divine  ex- 
istence which  operates  in  and  through  them.^  The 
divine  action  in  the  world  is  immediate,  and  even  mir- 
acles, as  they  are  called,  are  not  abrupt  and  sudden 
interpositions,  but  fall  within  the  lines  of  uniform  and 
allrpervading  law.  To  Zwingle's  mind  the  whole  as- 
pect of  the  world  was  in  the  highest  sense  miraculous, 
and  ordinary  phenomena  were  more  divine  than  events 
which  merely  strike  the  imagination  because  of  their 
extraordinary  or  rare  character.^  Man  is  born  with 
the  capacity  to  know  and  to  possess  God.  His  spirit, 
by  its  very  nature,  goes  out  to  God.  But  it  is  not  by 
and  in  himself,  as  a  being  distinct  from  God,  that  man 
can  rise  either  to  the  knowledge  of  God  or  the  true 
knowledge  of  himself.  Hence  revelation  becomes  part 
of  the  organic  process  of  things  —  a  living,  actual, 
present  process,  whose  results  are  not  exclusively  re- 

^  Numen  enim  ut  a  se  ipso  est,  ita  non  est  quicquam  quod  a  se 
ipso  et  non  ab  illo  sit.  Esse  igitur  rerum  universarum  esse  nu- 
minis  est.  Ut  non  sit  frivola  ea  Philosophorum  sententia,  qui 
dixerunt,  omnia  unum  esse  ;  si  recte  modo  illos  capiamus,  vide- 
licet ita  ut  omnium  esse  numinis  sit  esse,  et  ab  illo  cunctis  tribu- 
atur  es  sustineatur.  Quo  fit  ut  ab  illo  nihil  possit  negligi.  Quum 
enim  omnia  ex  illo  et  in  illo  sint,  iam  nihil  aut  ex  illo  aut  in  illo 
esse  poterit,  quod  ab  illo  aut  ignoretup  aut  contemnatur  ;  vetaut 
enim  sapientia  et  bonitas.  — De  prov.  Dei,  Op.,  iv.  139. 

a  Op.,  iv.  129. 


ZWINGLE'S   VIEW  OF  REVELATION.       289 

corded  in  Scripture.  In  one  sense  the  Bible  is  the 
word  of  God,  but  in  a  higher  sense  the  word  of  God  is 
a  personal  force  stirring  within  the  soul,  speaking  with 
supreme  authority,  and  constituting  the  standard  by 
which  the  written  letter  of  the  book  is  to  be  criticised 
and  judged.  1  Hence  Zwingle,  more  than  others  among 
the  reformers,  recognized  the  traces  of  historic  growth 
in  the  different  parts  of  Scripture.  Luther's  principle, 
that  the  Bible  is  essentially  the  mirror  of  devout  expe- 
rience, misled  him  more  than  once  into  grave  errors. 
Zwingle  approaches  the  book  with  no  anxiety  about 
reconciling  discrepancies.  He  expects  to  find  there 
things  which  belong  to  a  lower  as  well  as  a  higher 
stage  of  spiritual  development.  But  the  word  of  God 
has  spoken  not  only  in  the  Bible,  but  always  and  every- 
where, wherever  there  is  any  knowledge  of  that  which 
is  good  and  true.  Heathen  writers,  like  Plato  and 
Pliny  and  Seneca,  have  uttered  the  truth  under  the  in- 
spiration of  the  revealing  word. 

The  law  of  God  as  revealed  in  Scripture  or  else- 
where is  not  a  series  of  arbitrary,  external  statutes,  but 
reveals  the  inmost  divine  nature,  and  the  basis,  there- 
fore, of  human  morality  lies  in  the  inward  sentiments 
which  determine  action.  The  widest  divergence  in 
Zwingle's  views  from  the  traditional  opinions  still  re- 
tained in  the  reformed  church  is  seen  in  his  view  of 
sin.  He  denied  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  as  set  forth 
by  Augtistine,  maintaining  a  position  similar  to  that 
of  the  Greek  Fathers,  Chrysostom  and  Theodore  of 
Mopsuestia,  that  misery  but  not  guilt  attaches  to  man 
in  consequence  of  the  fall.  Zwingle  also  makes  an 
effort  to  define  more  precisely  the  nature  of  sin,  see- 
ing in  it  a  principle  of  disharmony  which  a  divine  in- 

*  De  vera  et  falsa  reliffionef  Op.y  iii.  130, 288  ;  also  Op.,  iv.  85, 95. 
19 


290       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

dwelling  presence  is  working  to  overcome,  rather  than 
a  successful  revolt  against  the  divine  purpose.  Sin  is 
even  necessary  as  part  of  an  educating  process  by 
which  man  comes  to  know  and  follow  the  right,  just 
as  justice  could  not  be  appreciated  without  the  expe- 
rience of  injustice,  or  good  be  fully  measured  without 
a  sense  of  evil.^  Hence  sin  is  best  described  as  a  state 
of  death  in  which  man  is  unconscious  of  God  and  lives 
only  to  himself.  The  law  of  God  does  not  excite  to 
sin,  but  it  reveals  sin  and  shows  how  great  is  the  bar- 
rier it  has  raised  between  the  soul  and  God.  Christ 
comes  to  remove  this  barrier,  which  prevents  God  and 
the  soul  from  flowing  together  like  two  streams  in  a 
common  life.  Zwingle's  thought  with  reference  to 
this  aspect  of  the  Saviour's  work  does  not  differ  sub- 
stantially from  that  of  Luther.  Christ  delivers  man 
from  the  sense  of  condemnation  by  revealing  not  only 
the  divine  justice  and  horror  of  sin,  but  also  the  divine 
mercy  and  love.  If  Zwingle  does  not  seem  to  lay 
stress  upon  justification  by  faith,  it  is  not  because  he 
underrates  its  importance ;  it  is  everywhere  assumed  as 
true  without  need  of  discussion ;  that  which  Zwingle 
dwells  upon  is  the  divine  character  to  be  built  up  in 
those  who  have  made  the  beginning  in  the  Christian 
life.  Faith,  hope,  and  love  are  three  qualities  not  to 
be  separated  in  Christian  experience  —  the  three  con- 
stituents of  the  divine  life  in  man,  which  from  first  to 
last  is  inspired  and  perfected  by  the  indwelling  infi- 
nite Spirit. 

Zwingle  seems  to  have  shocked  the  religious  senti- 
ments of  the  German  reformers  not  only  by  his  clear 
denial  of  the  Latin  view  of  original  sin,  but  by  his 
conception  of  the  salvability  of  the  heathen,  and  his 
1  C^.,  iv.  109. 


THE  LORD'S   SUPPER  A  MEMORIAL.        291 

doctrine  of  the  sacraments.  In  regard  to  the  former 
he  expressed  himself  in  a  memorable  passage  in  the 
confession  of  his  faith,  sent  shortly  before  his  death  to 
the  French  king.  "  In  the  company  of  the  redeemed," 
he  said,  "  you  will  then  see  Hercules,  Theseus,  Socra- 
tes, Aristides,  Antigonus,  Numa,  Camillus,  the  Catos, 
and  the  Scipios.  In  a  word,  not  one  good  man,  one 
holy  spirit,  one  faithful  soul,  whom  you  will  not  then 
behold  with  God."  ^  The  Latin  idea,  that  there  was 
no  salvation  outside  of  the  church,  lingered  on  with 
the  reformers  long  after  they  had  rejected  the  view  that 
the  church  was  identical  with  any  one  organization. 
At  a  later  time  Bossuet  selected  this  passage  for  severe 
animadversion  in  his  "Variations  of  Protestantism," 
oblivious  of  the  fact  that  Justin  Martyr,  an  approved 
saint  of  the  early  church,  and  so  recognized  in  the 
Latin  calendar,  had  expressed  himself  in  similar  terms. 
The  controversy  with  Luther  about  the  sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  Supper  was  one  of  the  painful  incidents 
in  the  Reformation,  if  for  no  other  reason,  because  Lu- 
ther appears  in  the  affair  so  far  below  his  true  self.  It 
was  a  case  where  the  disputants  failed  to  understand 
each  other,  because  neither  fully  understood  himself. 
Zvvingle  made  the  sacrament  a  memorial  of  the  death 
of  Christ,  and  found  in  it  as  such  a  spiritual  efficacy ; 
to  Luther's  mind  this  seemed  to  empty  the  sacra- 
ment  of  its  significance ;  he  preferred  to  regard  it  as 
charged  with  a  divine  presence,  as  containing  the 
actual  body  and  blood  of  Christ.  But  Zwingle  had 
no  necessity  for  confining  to  the  eucharist  a  beneficent 
presence  with  which  the  world  was  full,  whose  secret 
shrine  was  in  every  faithful  heart.  If  Zwingle  seemed 
to  rob  the  sacrament  of  a  real  presence  of  Christ, 
^  Fidei  Christiance  Exposition  Op.,  iv.  65. 


292       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

Luther  seemed  to  rob  the  world  itself  of  such  a  pres- 
ence, just  as  the  Latin  church  had  done  when  she  lost 
the  idea  of  the  immanence  of  Christ  in  humanity,  and 
made  the  sacraments  channels  for  the  conveyance  of 
grace  from  His  remote  abode.  The  controversy  illus- 
trates the  inevitable  confusion  of  thought  in  the  age 
of  the  Reformation,  but  it  also  shows  how  Zwingle  had 
revolutionized  theology  from  its  basis,  while  Luther  re- 
mained divided  in  his  allegiance  between  two  systems, 
one  of  which  claimed  the  devotion  of  his  life,  while 
the  other  held  him  bound  by  the  sacred  associations  of 
religious  sentiment.  So  long  as  Luther  did  not  for- 
mally recognize  the  immanence  of  the  essential  Christ 
as  the  redeeming  force  in  human  life,  there  was  a  want 
in  his  thought,  which  his  doctrine  of  the  eucharist  was 
an  attempt  to  supply.  It  was  creditable  to  Zwingle 
that  he  still  wished  to  maintain  Christian  fellowship 
with  Luther,  despite  their  difference  of  opinion.  It 
was  characteristic  of  Luther,  that  although  the  hour 
was  full  of  danger,  he  would  make  no  compromise  of 
his  convictions  for  the  sake  of  advantage.  The  words 
of  Luther  to  Zwingle  when  the  discussion  was  over, 
"You  have  a  different  spirit  than  we,"  —  Ihr  haht 
einen  and  em  Geist  denn  wir^  —  were  true  in  a  deeper 
sense  than  either  of  the  antagonists  were  aware.^ 
It  would  seem  as  if  the  great  ecclesiastical  reaction, 

^  Wilson,  Bampton  Lectures,  1851,  on  the  Communion  of  Saints, 
points  out  the  bearings  of  Zwingle's  theology  on  the  deeper  prob- 
lems of  the  Christian  life  and  its  relation  to  Christian  psychology  ; 
Sporri,  Zwingli-Studien,  traces  his  theological  views  to  one  com- 
mon principle,  —  that  the  material  symbol  is  inadequate  to  the 
expression  of  spiritual  ideas  and  relationships.  Dorner,  Hist,  oj 
Prot.  Theol.y  compares  Zwingle  with  Luther  and  Calvin,  and  ex- 
pounds these  three  distinct  types  of  theology  to  which  the  Refor* 
mation  gave  birth. 


ZWINGLE  IN  ADVANCE   OF  HIS  AGE.      293 

led  by  the  followers  of  Loyola,  might  have  been  ren- 
dered powerless  to  injure  the  work  of  the  Reforma- 
tion could  the  views  of  Zwingle  have  been  generally 
received.  But  he  was  so  far  in  advance  of  his  age 
that  his  teaching  produced  no  immediate  influence. 
It  remains  only  as  a  monument  to  the  workings  of  the 
Christian  mind  at  a  rare  moment  when  it  shone  forth 
in  all  the  richness  of  its  native  endowment,  in  a  cre- 
ative epoch  when  its  powers  were  stimulated  and  ex- 
alted as  if  by  special  communion  with  its  divine  source 
in  God,  when  for  a  time  there  was  no  restraint  upon 
its  action  in  thought  or  utterance.  Zwingle  was  not 
merely  misunderstood ;  he  was  hardly  understood  at 
all,  or,  so  far  as  his  meaning  was  comprehended,  it 
was  regarded  with  distrust,  if  not  with  derision.  Un- 
der happier  circumstances  than  those  which  followed 
the  Reformation,  his  death  upon  the  battle-field  of 
Cappel  might  have  seemed  a  bright  example  of  martyr- 
dom for  the  truth ;  as  it  was,  it  appeared  rather  as  a 
gloomy  warning,  —  a  penalty  for  mixing  up  his  re- 
ligious profession  with  the  political  affairs  of  the  state. 
Zwinofle  made  little  or  no  distinction  between  the 
church  and  the  state;  his  ideal  was  the  common- 
wealth in  which  the  Christian  was  sunk  in  the  citizen, 
after  the  model  of  that  higher  state  of  which  it  is 
written  that  our  citizenship  is  in  heaven.  He  lived 
long  enough  to  see  that  his  dream  was  not  soon  to  be 
realized.  In  his  last  years,  he  fell  back  for  support 
and  comfort  upon  that  higher  view  of  the  Christian 
revelation  which  regards  it  as  finding  its  natural  ex- 
pression in  the  human  reason;  he  consoled  himself 
with  the  vision  of  the  divine  reason,  the  word  of  God, 
which  speaks  always  and  everywhere  to  human  souls, 
—  the  only  pledge  for  the  fulfillment  of  the  Christian 


294       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION. 

anticipation,  —  that  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  shall 
become  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ. 


IV. 

In  considering  the  influence  of  Calvin  upon  theol- 
ogy, it  is  important  to  remember  that  he  was  French 
as  to  his  nationality.  The  character  of  his  mind  is 
not  that '  of  the  Germanic  races,  whether  in  Germany 
or  England.  He  had  the  tendency  of  his  nation  to 
adhere  relentlessly  to  abstract  principles ;  he  made  no 
allowance  for  the  utterance  of  the  consciousness  in 
man,  sacrificing  without  a  struggle  that  large  part  of 
our  nature,  where  spirit  and  sentiment  appear  in  a 
living  combination.  It  is  certainly  interesting  to  note 
how  the  French  influence,  which  was  destined  to  dom- 
inate the  literature,  the  art,  and  the  morals  of  both 
Germany  and  England  during  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury and  on  into  the  eighteenth  before  it  was  thrown 
off,  should  have  been  anticipated  in  theology  by  Cal- 
vin in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  that  French  theology 
should  have  maintained  an  ascendency  in  Protestant 
Christendom  for  two  centuries  before  Germany  shook 
herself  free  from  foreign  control. 

Calvin  was  born  in  1509,  the  interval  of  a  genera- 
tion elapsing  between  the  commencement  of  his  work 
and  that  of  Luther  and  Zwingle.  When  he  appeared 
as  a  reformer,  the  first  glow  of  enthusiasm  and  zeal 
which  characterized  the  earlier  generation  had  begun 
to  die  away,  and  in  its  place  had  come  timidity  and 
distrust,  a  tendency  to  compromise  truth  in  the  inter- 
est of  quiet  and  order.  There  was  no  longer  the  dis- 
position to  seek  for  truth  at  all  hazards,  or  to  put  faith 
in  that  which  was  true  as  that  which  must  conduce  to 


EVILS  ATTENDING   THE  REFORMATION.    295 

the  highest  well  -  being  of  society.  Melancthon,  who 
best  represents  this  mood  of  the  Reformation,  was  a 
timid,  or,  as  Luther  said,  a  pusillanimous  spii-it,  capa- 
ble of  seeing  two  sides  of  a  question,  or  enough  to 
weaken  his  allegiance  to  truth,  but  not  capable  of  see- 
ing all  around  and  through  it.  With  him  it  was  not 
so  much  what  was  true  as  what  would  be  useful  in 
maintaining  social  and  ecclesiastical  order.  His  com- 
pliance was  so  great  that  there  seemed  no  limit  to  the 
concessions  he  was  inclined  to  make  to  this  end.  Even 
the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  he  thought  might 
be  modified  so  as  to  include  works,  in  order  to  avoid 
the  abuses  to  which  it  was  exposed ;  it  was  better  to 
allow  man  a  little  freedom  than  to  make  him  alto- 
gether dependent  upon  God's  action ;  there  might  be 
no  harm  in  restoring  the  old  cultus,  with  its  rich  and 
tender  associations.^  Luther  stood  firm  to  the  truth  as 
it  had  been  revealed  to  him.  But  his  last  days  were 
full  of  sadness ;  he  seemed  to  lose  hope  for  the  world, 
and  at  times  longed  to  be  delivered  from  the  impend- 
ing evil.  The  fearful  strain  which  he  had  undergone 
in  leading  the  revolt  from  the  papacy  may  have  been 
too  much  for  his  constitution.  The  situation  was  in- 
deed a  trying  one.  As  in  the  case  of  Moses  when  he 
led  the  Israelites  out  of  Egypt,  the  crossing  of  the  sea 
was  a  light  task,  because  of  the  spiritual  exhilaration 
attendant  upon  the  consciousness  of  a  Divine  presence  ; 
but  the  real  trial  came  afterwards  when  the  people 
had  no  fixed  home,  no  laws  with  the  sacred  associa- 

^  Although  Melancthon  fills  a  considerable  place  in  the  theol- 
ogy of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  he  has  no  special 
interest  or  importance  for  the  larger  process  of  theological  de- 
velopment, and  is  therefore  omitted  in  this  account  of  theology 
in  the  age  of  the  Kef  ormation. 


296        THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION, 

tions  of  ages,  when  the  customs  which  bind  a  people 
together  had  not  yet  grown  up. 

It  had  been  one  of  the  inevitable  effects  of  the  Ref- 
ormation that  it  caused  a  profound  unsettlement  of 
the  human  mind,  even  in  those  by  whose  faith  it  had 
been  accomplished.  Speculation  about  the  foundations 
of  religion  or  morality  or  human  government  is  always 
attended  with  danger ;  the  great  mass  of  men  take 
these  things  for  granted,  and  any  event  which  leads 
them  to  think  that  the  institutions  of  life  are  not  as  di- 
vinely fixed  as  the  everlasting  hills,  is  sure  to  precipi- 
tate in  its  train  the  wildest  disorder.  The  Protestant 
Reformation  had  served,  as  it  were,  to  discover  "  the 
foundations  of  the  round  world."  As  men  glanced  at 
the  process  by  which  the  order  of  things  had  grown 
up  and  been  maintained,  it  seemed  as  though  any- 
thing might  be  changed,  as  though  the  hour  had  come 
for  the  reconstruction  of  society  as  well  as  the  church. 
Communism  and  polygamy  were  preached  as  the  basis 
of  a  new  civilization ;  so-called  prophets  traveled  about 
proclaiming  themselves  in  possession  of  new  revela- 
tions, throwing  discredit  upon  adherence  to  the  Bible 
as  a  vile  servility  to  the  letter.  Under  such  circum- 
stances, the  claims  of  order  became  more  pressing 
than  inquiry  after  truth.  No  one  ever  misread  his 
age  more  than  Servetus  when  he  took  for  granted  that 
the  reformers  were  engaged  in  a  process  of  free  theo- 
logical investigation,  and  would  welcome  the  aid  of 
any  who  could  throw  a  new  light  upon  the  interpre- 
tations of  old  doctrines.  Calvin  stood  for  order  and 
discipline  as  the  primary  requisites  of  his  time.  He 
became  the  founder  of  a  church  whose  value  as  an  ally 
in  promoting  these  ends  was  recognized  far  and  wide, 
—  an  organization  which  rivaled  the  church  of  Rome 


CALVIN'S  IDEA    OF  THE   CHURCH.         297 

in  its  discipline  as  well  as  in  its  power  of  adaptation 
to  different  nationalities.  Its  cosmopolitan  character, 
in  comparison  with  the  organization  of  the  church  in 
England  or  in  Germany,  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  it 
became  the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  Scotland  and  the 
Netherlands,  of  the  Puritans  in  England,  the  Hugue- 
nots in  France,  of  a  large  part  of  Germany,  as  well  as 
Switzerland  where  it  originated. 

Calvin  h^ld  that  the  church  consisted  of  the  elect, 
and  like  all  the  reformers  asserted  the  invisible  aspect 
of  a  body  which  could  only  be  known  to  God.  But  he 
was  far  more  interested  in  the  visible  church  than  in 
the  invisible,  and  devoted  a  large  part  of  his  "  Insti- 
tutes "  to  delineating  its  constitution  and  its  discipline. 
That  feature  of  discipline,  as  it  is  caUed,  which  the 
Church  of  England  did  not  retain,  which  the  Lutheran 
church  also  dropped,  assumed  in  the  church  organized 
by  Calvin  a  prominence  as  marked  as  it  had  possessed 
in  the  old  ecclesiastical  order.  But  it  was  retained  at 
the  expense  of  sacrificing  the  idea  which  Luther  and 
Zwingle  and  others  had  maintained  —  that  the  clergy 
were  the  representatives  of  the  congregation  and 
gained  the  sanction  of  their  office  from  the  approval 
and  choice  of  the  body.  Neither  Luther  nor  Zwingle 
had  attached  importance  to  ordination  as  conveying 
any  gift  from  a  source  away  and  apart  from  the  peo- 
ple. But  in  Calvin's  system,  as  in  the  mediaeval,  the 
clergy  are  the  delegates  of  a  remote  sovereign,  sepa- 
rate from  the  people,  endowed  by  the  Holy  Spirit  with 
the  gifts  and  the  powers  of  their  high  office.  In  other 
words,  Calvin  retained  substantially  the  Latin  idea  of 
the  church  with  some  necessary  modifications,  intend- 
ing that  the  reformed  clergy  should  take  the  place  of 
the  Latin  hierarchy,  with  supreme  authority  over  the 


/ 


298       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

congregation.  The  duty  of  the  state,  in  its  relation  to 
the  church,  as  in  the  Middle  Ages,  was  to  sustain  the 
action  of  the  clergy  by  the  sword. 

Calvin's  system  of  church  organization  and  dis- 
cipline may  be  studied  apart  from  his  peculiar  theol- 
ogy. In  the  seventeenth  century  in  England,  under 
the  regime  of  Cromwell,  the  Independents  or  Congre- 
gationalists  discarded  the  former  for  a  more  demo- 
cratic constitution,  while  still  retaining  his  system  of 
doctrine.  His  labors  as  an  ecclesiastical  administrator 
were  not  so  enduring  as  his  work  as  a  theologian.  In 
this  direction  he  so  impressed  himself  upon  Protestant 
Christendom  that  his  influence  still  lives,  even  in  ec- 
clesiastical circles  which  believe  themselves  emanci- 
pated from  any  traces  of  his  spirit. 

Calvin's  theology  is  drawn,  or  professes  to  be  drawn, 
exclusively  from  Scripture.  The  Bible,  as  he  defined 
and  understood  it,  is  the  corner-stone  of  his  system. 
He  had  no  respect  for  Luther's  view  of  Scripture  as 
the  mirror  of  the  religious  experience  of  humanity, 
nor  for  Zwingle's  view  of  a  "  word  of  God  "  in  the 
soul  by  which  man  judges  the  value  of  the  written 
word.  He  denied  the  position  of  the  Latin  church, 
that  the  Bible  was  given  and  attested  by  the  authority 
of  the  hierarchy,  or  the  continuous  existence  of  the 
episcopate.  According  to  Calvin,  God  reveals  Himself 
to  man  through  the  book  by  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Man  was  incapable  of  knowing  himself  or 
knowing  God,  except  by  this  revelation.  Revelation, 
as  given  in  the  book,  is  a  communication  from  God  to 
man,  supernaturally  imparted,  apart  from  the  action 
of  the  consciousness  or  reason ;  Calvin  speaks  at  times 
of  the  human  writer  as  an  amanuensis  only  of  the 
Spirit.     He  does  not,  therefore,  presume  to  criticise 


THE  BIBLE  AND  REVELATION,  299 

the  canon  or  its  formation ;  the  Bible  is  received  as 
one  whole,  as  it  has  come  down  through  the  ages. 
There  is  no  other  revelation  except  that  which  God 
made  to  the  Jewish  people  through  the  Old  Testament, 
and  to  the  Christian  world  through  the  New.  God 
may  have  given  light  enough  to  the  heathen  to  secure 
their  condemnation,  but  that  is  all.^  The  revelation 
which  God  makes  of  Himself  in  the  Bible  may  not 
disclose  to  us  the  inmost  character  of  Deity;  there 
is  in  reason  no  ground  for  believing  that  it  does  so ; 
God  only  reveals  what  He  designs  that  man  should 
know  and  practice.  The  God  who  is  thus  revealed  is 
a  being  outside  of  the  frame- work  of  the  universe,  who 
called  the  world  into  existence  by  the  power  of  His 
will.  Calvin  positively  rejected  the  doctrine  of  the 
divine  immanence.  When  he  spoke  of  that  "  dog  of 
a  Lucretius"  who  mingles  God  and  nature,  he  may 
have  also  had  Zwingle  in  his  mind.  In  order  to  sep- 
arate  more  completely  between  God  and  man,  he  inter- 
posed ranks  of  mediators,  the  ministers  of  the  divine 
will  in  nature,  or  in  the  process  of  redemption,  — 
angels  as  ministers  of  the  good,  and  demons  as  instru- 
ments of  evil.  Satan  is  the  supreme  agent  in  the 
hand  of  God  for  accomplishing  evil ;  it  is  he  that 
secures  the  punishment  of  the  reprobate  and  dis- 
ciplines the  elect.  According  to  the  prologue  of  the 
Book  of  Job  which  Calvin  read  as  veritable  history, 
Satan  has  a  knowledge  of  the  mind  of  God,  and 
though  an  evil  spirit,  he  never  thwarts,  but  always 
fulfills,  the  divine  purpose.  Why  there  should  be  evil 
in  the  world  it  is  as  presumptuous  to  inquire  as  why 
there  should  be  a  world  at  all,  but  there  is  no  evil 
which  does  not  redound  to  the  glory  of  God.  The  fate 
1  Institutes^  ii.  c.  2. 


300       THEOLOGY  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

of  Adam  was  not  an  unforeseen  catastrophe ;  it  had 
been  decreed  by  God  before  the  creation.  He  also  de- 
creed  that  Adam's  sin  and  guilt  should  be  imputed 
to  his  entire  posterity.  All  men  were  born  under  the 
divine  condemnation,  not  merely  because  they  had  in- 
herited the  effects  of  Adam's  transgression,  but  be- 
cause God  willed  that  Adam's  guilt  should  be  also 
theirs.  He  elects  a  few  of  the  human  race  to  salva- 
tion, and  the  vast  majority  He  leaves  to  the  condem- 
nacion  which  by  their  sins  they  deserve.^  He  does  not 
make  them  sin  in  order  to  merit  the  condemnation 
which  He  has  decreed,  but  He  simply  withholds  His 
grace  so  that  they  cannot  but  sin.  Those  who  are 
elect  are  not  so  in  virtue  of  any  goodness  of  disposi- 
tion which  God  foresees,  but  simply  by  the  act  of  His 
sovereign,  arbitrary  will.  Upon  the  elect  He  confers 
greater  benefits  than  upon  Adam  before  his  fall,  for 
He  endows  them  with  the  gift  of  perseverance  which 
insures  the  fulfillment  of  their  destiny;  even  their 
transgressions  and  failures  minister  to  their  humility, 
and  thus  secure  the  perfecting  of  their  character. 

With  reference  to  the  doctrines  of  the  trinity,  the 
incarnation,  and  the  two  natures  in  Christ,  Calvin  does 
not  differ  from  the  statements  of  Latin  or  mediaeval 

1  Calvin  admits  that  all  this  may  seem  horrible,  but  it  is  just, 
because  it  is  God  that  has  decreed  it.  Institutes,  iii.  c.  23  (7).  It 
is  a  common  mistake  to  represent  Calvin  as  attributing  the  decree 
of  reprobation  to  the  divine  anger.  Calvin  does  not  think  that 
God  is  ever  angry  ;  he  speaks  like  a  modern  rationalist  of  the 
accommodation  of  Scripture,  in  this  respect,  to  our  weakness : 
"Though  God  declares  that  He  is  angry  with  the  wicked,  we 
ought  not  to  imagine  that  there  is  any  emotion  in  Him,  but  ought 
rather  to  consider  this  mode  of  speech  accommodated  to  our  sense, 
God  appearing  to  us  like  one  inflamed  and  irritated  whenever  He 
exercises  judgment."  —  Institutes,  i.  c.  22. 


CALVIN'S  THEORY  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.    301 

theologians,  except  in  relying  on  the  authority  of  Scrip- 
ture for  their  confirmation  in  place  of  tradition  or  the 
authority  of  the  church.  He  was  unacquainted  with 
the  history  of  their  dogmatic  development  in  the 
ancient  church,  nor  had  he  attempted  its  study  would 
he  have  found  it  a  congenial  one.  He  accepts,  like 
the  other  reformers,  the  mediaeval  idea  of  an  atone- 
ment, as  Anselm  had  given  it  expression ;  he  sees  in 
the  offering  of  Christ  a  provision  for  escape  from  the 
consequences  of  sin,  but  he  modifies  the  view  of  An- 
selm in  one  important  respect,  —  he  looks  upon  the 
sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  as  a  veritable  punish- 
ment in  which  the  Saviour  bore  vicariously  the  wrath 
and  condemnation  of  God.  To  this  end  he  is  inclined 
to  magnify  the  intensity  and  horror  of  Christ's  an- 
guish upon  the  cross,  and  His  descent  into  hell  was 
viewed  as  necessary  for  the  completeness  of  his  vica- 
rious punishment.  The  doctrine'  of  the  atonement  be- 
came in  the  following  period  a  subject  of  discussion 
and  controversy  as  it  had  not  been  in  the  age  of  the 
Reformation,  and  it  then  received  a  more  exact  state- 
ment ;  but  in  all  its  later  modifications  the  doctrine 
still  bore  the  stamp  of  Calvin's  mind  rather  than  of 
Anselm's,  and  as  such  has  come  down  to  our  own 
day.i 

^  Instit.^  ii.  c.  15.  Upon  this  view  of  the  atonement  it  has  been 
correctly  remarked :  "  For  three  centuries  it  has  been  the  popular 
view  in  England,  though  not  without  protest.  Grotius's  early 
work  against  Socinus  (de  Satisfactione  Christi)  helped  to  fix  it  in 
our  theology,  even  Hammond,  Outram,  and  Bishop  Pearson  em- 
bracing it ;  and  so  largely  has  it  been  adopted,  that  it  has  come 
to  be  viewed  as  the  orthodox  view  of  the  English  church,  although 
it  has  no  place  in  our  prayer-book,  and  although  even  those  who 
adopt  it  (as  Dr.  Shedd,  in  his  History  of  Doctrine)  are  fain  to  ac- 
knowledge that  it  has  nearer  received  the  stamp  of  Catholic 
truth."  — Norris,  Rudiments  of  Theology y  p.  267. 


302       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION. 

The  vista  of  future  ages  in  the  world  to  come,  as  Cal- 
vin saw  and  described  it,  is  clear  and  definite.  The 
earthly  life  of  Christ  he  regarded  as  the  period  of 
His  humiliation,  when  His  divine  glory  was  concealed 
behind  a  veil.  When  He  rose  from  the  dead  He  de- 
parted to  distant  realms  to  sit  down  at  the  right  hand 
of  God.  His  mediatorial  kingdom  then  commenced, 
and  will  continue  until  the  elect  are  gathered  in. 
For  these  He  died  and  rose  again  ;  His  merits  are  im- 
puted to  them  by  divine  decree  ;  they  are  sheltered  by 
His  intercessions  at  the  throne  of  God ;  they  partake 
of  His  life,  and  are  progressively  sanctified  till  they 
are  called  away  into  His  presence.  He  is  to  come 
again  to  judge  the  world,  and  then  will  be  made 
manifest  the  divine  glory ;  His  mediatorial  kingdom 
will  then  come  to  an  end ;  He  will  return  back  again 
into  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  as  He  existed  before 
the  foundation  of  the  world ;  the  period  of  humilia- 
tion will  be  over,  and  the  veil  which  now  covers  the 
face  of  His  glory  will  be  done  away. 

In  some  respects  the  system  of  Calvin  not  merely 
repeats  but  exaggerates  the  leading  ideas  of  Latin 
Christianity.  In  no  Latin  writer  is  found  such  a 
determined  purpose  to  reject  the  immanence  of  Deity 
and  assert  His  transcendence  and  His  isolation  from 
the  world.  In  his  conception  of  God,  as  absolute 
arbitrary  will,  he  surpasses  Duns  Scotus;  he  rivals 
Mohammedanism  by  a  doctrine  of  decrees  that  sub- 
dues the  creature  into  fatalistic  submission  to  neces- 
sity. The  separation  between  God  and  humanity  is 
emphasized  as  it  has  never  been  before,  for  Calvin 
insists,  dogmatically  and  formally,  upon  that  which 
had  been,  to  a  large  extent,  hitherto,  an  unconscious 
though  controlling  sentiment.     And  yet  there  were 


MERITS  OF  CALVIN'S  THEOLOGY.  303 

features  also  about  this  theology  which  show  some 
advance  over  Latin  Christianity,  —  it  contained  ele-* 
ments  which  prepared  the  way  for  future  develop- 
ments. Although  Calvin  aimed  by  his  doctrine  of 
the  church  to  restore  the  ascendency  of  the  clergy 
over  the  conscience  of  the  people,  yet  the  action  of 
this  principle  was  modified  by  the  force  of  his  doc- 
trine of  an  individual  election,  which  obliged  men  to 
contemplate  themselves  as  forever  standing  face  to 
face  with  the  sovereign  majesty  of  God.  The  effect 
of  this  conviction  was  necessarily  to  destroy  every 
tyranny,  whether  in  church  or  state ;  to  break  down 
all  human  mediators  which  professed  to  control  human 
destiny,  and  thus  to  minister  in  reality  to  human  free- 
dom. The  importance  which  Calvin  attached  to  the 
sanctification  of  the  elect  made  the  cultivation  of 
righteousness  and  the  obedience  of  the  moral  law 
stand  forth  more  clearly  as  the  end  of  all  true  living. 
He  has  also  the  merit  of  drawing  attention  to  the  life 
of  Christ,  and  not  solely  His  birth.  His  death  and 
resurrection,  and  of  bringing  into  greater  prominence 
the  perfect  righteousness  which  made  an  element  in 
His  offering  to  God.  In  his  treatment  of  the  life  of 
Christ  he  was  the  pioneer  of  modem  efforts  to  recon- 
struct, in  more  complete  and  scientific  form,  the  con- 
tents of  the  gospel  narratives.  He  was  the  first  theo- 
logian, since  the  days  of  Greek  theology,  to  bring  out 
the  spirit  that  was  in  Christ.  While  he  admits  the 
miraculous  birth  of  the  son  of  Mary,  yet  it  was  not 
to  the  virgin  mother  that  Christ  owed  anything  of  the 
purity  or  sanctity  of  His  nature,  but  to  this,  that 
God  directly  endowed  Him  with  all  the  fullness  of 
spiritual  wealth.^  Hence  he  struck  intelligently  at 
that  lower  conception  of  the  incarnation  so  prominent 
^  Institutes,  ii.  cc.  13,  14. 


304       THEOLOGY  OF   THE  REFORMATION. 

in  the  Latin  church,  whose  tendency  was  to  deify  the 
mother  of  Christ  as  the  source  whence  the  Saviour 
drew  His  human  purity  or  excellence.  His  sharp 
distinction  between  the  elect  and  the  non-elect  con- 
tributed to  destroy  that  almost  Egyptian  cultus  of  the 
dead,  which  in  the  later  Middle  Ages  had  absorbed 
so  much  of  the  prayers,  the  wealth,  the  energies  of 
the  living.  The  assertion  of  the  absolute  supremacy 
of  the  divine  will  destroyed  all  lingering  fondness  for 
images  of  every  kind  ;  it  concentrated  the  worship  of 
man  exclusively  upon  God. 

Such  was  the  system  which  carried  with  it  the  im- 
mediate future  in  the  history  of  Protestantism.  It 
professed  in  every  part  and  smallest  detail  to  reflect 
faithfully  the  teaching  of  Scripture ;  in  reality  it  only 
rested  for  its  confirmation  upon  a  misreading  of  St. 
Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  was  then  applied 
to  all  Scripture  as  a  measuring-rod.  But  when  such  a 
system  had  once  taken  possession  of  the  mind  it  was 
not  difficult  to  read  the  Bible  in  the  light  of  it,  and 
indeed  it  was  impossible  not  to  do  so,  especially  when 
ingenious  treatment  of  special  passages  was  capable 
of  bringing  them  into  harmony  with  the  preconceived 
assumptions  of  the  reader.  And  the  system  of  Calvin 
had,  strange  as  it  may  now  seem,  a  wondrous  fascina- 
tion for  the  generations  that  followed  him.  It  was 
voluntarily  adopted  to  a  large  extent,  even  in  the 
Lutheran  and  Anglican  churches.  It  was,  so  to  speak, 
the  spirit  in  the  air.  It  had  a  genuine  mission  to  ac- 
complish for  humanity,  and  not  until  its  mission  was 
over  would  its  real  weakness  be  apparent.  Then  it 
would  be  seen  that  it  rested  upon  assumptions  which 
Calvin  had  been  unwilling  to  analyze,  and  that  at  its 
basis  lurked  the  spirit  of  what  is  called  modern 
skepticism. 


CONFLICT    OF    THE    TRADITIONAL 
THEOLOGY  WITH  REASON. 


Hoc  primum  intelligentes  quod  omnis  prophetia  Scriptune  propria  inter- 
pretatione  non  fit. 

Non  enini  voluntate  hutnana  allata  est  aliqaando  prophetia  ;  sed  Spirita 
sancto  inspirati  locuti  sunt  sancti  Dei  homines.  —  2  Pet.  i.  20,  21. 

20 


CHKONOLOGICAL  TABLE. 


A.  D. 

1436.  Eaymund  of  Sabunde  taught  at  Toulouse, 

1553-1600.   Kichard  Hooker. 

1555-1621.   Arndt,  a  German  Mystic. 

1558-1603.   Reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

1559.   Beginning  of  Puritan  dissent. 

1571.   Eobert  Browne,  the  first  Independent. 

1576-1624.   Jacob  Bohrae 

1593-1632.    George  Herbert. 

1599-1658.    Oliver  Cromwell. 

1604-1610.   Bancroft,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

1608-1675.   John  Milton. 

1617-1688.   Cudworth,  the  philosopher. 

1618-1648.   Thirty  Years'  War. 

1620.   Landing  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 

1623-1662.   Blaise  Pascal. 

1627-1696.   Michael  MoHnos. 

1628-1688.   John  Bunyan. 

1630-1694.   Archbishop  Tillotson. 

1632-1704.   Locke,  the  philosopher. 

1633.   First  Congregation  of  Baptists. 

1635-1705.    Spener,  Father  of  German  Pietism. 

1642-1717.   Madam  Guion. 

1642-1727.   Sir  Isaac  Newton. 

1646.   George  Fox  begins  to  preach. 

1649-1660.   Age  of  the  Commonwealth. 

1660.   Restoration  of  Charles  II. 

1688.  The  English  Revolution. 

1689.  Act  of  Toleration  passed. 
1692-1752.   Bishop  Butler. 
1694-1778.   Voltaire. 
1703-1791.   John  Wesley. 
1711-1776.   Hume,  the  philosopher. 
1729-1781.   Lessing. 

1745.   Swedenborg  in  his  religious  career. 


CONFLICT    OF    THE    TRADITIONAL 
THEOLOGY  WITH  REASON. 


There  were  elements  of  hope  and  of  progress  in 
the  attitude  of  the  reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century 
which  were  not  fulfilled  in  the  age  that  followed.  In 
the  prevailing  theology  of  the  seventeenth  century 
there  was  no  divergence  in  principle  from  the  scholas- 
tic theology  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Indeed,  it  seems  as 
though  the.  aim  of  the  leaders  of  thought  was  to  re- 
turn as  near  to  the  spirit  of  Latin  Christianity  as  was 
possible  without  actually  passing  the  line  that  divided 
the  hostile  communions. 

The  thought  about  God  which  always  underlies  and 
controls  all  other  thought,  remained  unchanged.  De- 
ity continued  to  human  vision  as  a  sovereign  wiU  en- 
throned at  an  immeasurable  distance  from  man.  God 
and  man  were  regarded  as  alien  to  each  other,  in  their 
inmost  being;  the  characteristic  of  fallen  humanity 
was  not  only  incapacity  for  the  divine,  but  even  an 
active  hatred  and  enmity  for  God.  The  incarnation 
resolved  itself  into  a  scheme  or  plan  of  salvation,  by 
which  the  schism  in  the  divine  nature  between  justice 
and  love  might  be  overcome,  and  God  be  free  to  par- 
don man  and  to  receive  the  chosen  few  into  His  favor. 
The  nature  of  this  scheme  was  revealed  in  the  Bible. 
Man  had  no  inward  power  in  the  reason  to  appreciate 
its  fitness ;  the  glory  of  revelation  lay  in  its  confound- 
ing the  mind  and  humiliating  it  in  abject  submission  to 


308      TRADITIONAL  THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

that  which  had  been  arbitrarily  revealed.  Revelation 
was  a  matter  of  the  past ;  God  had  once  spoken  finally 
and  for  all  in  the  book  —  the  oracle  that  had  been 
miraculously  communicated  and  preserved.  The  Bible 
took  as  it  were  the  place  of  the  living  Christ ;  its  very 
letter  was  deified ;  in  it  alone  was  thought  to  lie  the 
power  of  imparting  life  and  salvation.  The  kingdom 
of  God  that  was  to  be  was  viewed  as  rising  in  another 
world  than  this.  Here  all  was  darkness  and  misery, 
saving  the  revelation  that  God  vouchsafed  to  make  to 
those  whom  in  His  inscrutable  purpose  it  might  be 
His  will  to  save.  The  outer  world  still  lay  under 
the  curse  of  the  divine  displeasure,  serving  to  conceal 
rather  than  make  known  its  divine  Creator;  it  had 
been  called  into  existence  out  of  nothing  and  was  des- 
tined to  relapse  again  into  its  original  nothingness. 
Despite  Luther's  teaching  of  justification  by  faith  and 
the  inward  assurance  that  it  implied,  or  Calvin's  doc- 
trine of  predestination,  which  was  also  an  effort  to 
overcome  the  uncertainty  about  salvation,  the  conjee- 
tura  moralis  of  the  Middle  Ages  came  back  again  in 
more  distressing  form.  It  took  the  shape  of  the  doc- 
trine of  probation,  according  to  which  each  individual 
man,  in  his  loneliness  and  isolation,  is  awaiting  the 
final  day  of  judgment,  when  the  outcome  of  his  career 
shall  be  disclosed.  On  the  issue  of  this  probation  it 
depended  whether  man  should  be  ultimately  admitted 
in  the  distant  future  to  the  presence  of  God,  or  be  for- 
ever banished  from  the  society  of  the  redeemed.  The 
motives  to  obedience  were  found  in  external  sanctions 
—  the  endless  bliss  which  awaited  the  saved,  the  end- 
less woe  which  awaited  the  lost.  Salvation  was  not 
construed  ethically  but  physically,  as  an  escape  from 
the  horrors  attending  the  divine  condemnation.     Be* 


THEOLOGY  OF  THE  17TH  CENTURY,       809 

cause  salvation  was  not  primarily  an  ethical  process, 
it  followed  that  other  considerations  than  righteous- 
ness and  conduct  modified  the  issue  of  human  proba- 
tion. To  think  rightly  became  of  the  highest  impor- 
tance ;  orthodoxy  in  belief  was  capable  of  covering 
a  multitude  of  sins  ;  to  give  one's  assent  to  the  scheme 
of  salvation  was  the  first  step  toward  acceptance  with 
God.  It  will  always  remain  one  of  the  curiosities  of 
theological  literature,  that  Lutheran  divines  should 
not  only  have  maintained  that  right  belief  might 
exist  in  those  who  are  wholly  unregenerate,  but  that 
carelessness  of  life  did  not  necessarily  diminish  the 
preacher's  power  to  convey  to  others  the  salvation  of 
God. 

Such  were  the  leading  features  of  the  formal  theol- 
ogy of  the  seventeenth  century.  Its  development  was 
attended  by  bitter  controversies  and  angry  recrimina- 
tions, which  hurt  the  spiritual  life  of  the  newly  organ- 
ized churches.  When  orthodoxy  of  opinion  assumed 
such  indispensable  importance,  it  was  inevitable  that 
any  deviation  from  the  traditional  system  of  Scripture 
interpretation  should  be  opposed  with  a  corresponding 
hatred.  And  yet  the  system  had  a  side  which  com- 
mended it  to  many  of  the  noblest  men  of  the  age.  It 
did  assert  in  an  age  of  great  political  confusion  and 
low  moral  ideals  the  absolute  supremacy  of  God,  the 
fact  that  He  did  rule  this  world,  however  mysterious 
and  incomprehensible  might  be  His  will.  For  those 
who  could  believe  themselves  within  the  charmed  cir- 
cle where  operated  the  divine  grace  there  was  comfort 
and  peace.  Like  the  Mohammedan  mosque  which 
outwardly  bristles  with  a  threatening  aspect,  there  was 
within  a  beautiful  inclosure  which  was  like  the  garden 
of  God.    As  a  system  of  theology,  it  possessed  a  charm 


810      TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

for  the  imagination,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  great  epic 
poem  of  "Paradise  Lost."  Milton  did  for  the  theol- 
ogy of  his  age  what  Dante  had  done  for  the  theology 
of  Thomas  Aquinas.  He  translated  it  into  poetry,  he 
remoulded  it  into  a  beautiful  theosophy,  which  long 
held  men  in  thralldom  to  that  against  which  their 
hearts  revolted.  More  than  the  Bible  itself,  more 
than  all  the  theologians  combined,  has  Milton's  imagi- 
nation identified  the  thought  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury with  divine  revelation ;  it  created  a  picture  which 
the  world  having  once  seen  could  never  forget. 

In  the  immortal  work  of  Bunyan,  "  The  Pilgrim's 
Progress,"  the  same  theology  was  reproduced  in  at- 
tractive guise  for  the  needs  of  the  humblest  Christian. 
Despite  the  fact  that  Christ  is  only  to  be  reached 
when  the  pilgrim's  journey  is  over  —  when  the  dark 
river  which  separates  man  from  God  has  been  safely 
crossed ;  or  that  only  angelic  or  other  intermediaries 
aid  the  traveler  on  his  way ;  or  that  there  is  no  rec- 
ognition of  the  dearest  and  closest  relationships  of  life 
compared  with  the  celestial  selfishness  that  inspires 
the  desire  for  salvation ;  despite  the  fact  that  the  Chris- 
tian life  is  not  regarded  as  preeminently  one  of  chari- 
ties and  of  doing  good  to  others  in  the  name  of  Christ, 
the  work  of  Bunyan  will  always  be  regarded  with 
pride  and  tenderness  not  only  as  one  of  the  master- 
pieces of  Christian  literature,  but  as  a  rare  and  beau- 
tiful picture  of  Christian  experience  whose  fidelity  to 
human  nature  will  prevent  it  from  ever  becoming  an- 
tiquated. 

The  theology  of  the  seventeenth  century  on  its 
practical  side  is  exemplified,  better,  perhaps,  than 
anywhere  else,  in  the  career  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  In 
him   may  be  seen  its  genuine  fruits,  —  the  hardness 


ITS  PRACTICAL  ILLUSTRATION.  311 

and  severity,  even  the  cruelty  which  he  systematically 
manifested  for  the  accomplishment  of  his  ends,  the 
narrow  range  of  the  intellect,  the  confusion  of  his  own 
ambition  with  the  divine  will,  and  yet  withal  the  in- 
spired hero,  who  wrought  in  the  consciousness  of  a 
God-appointed  mission,  who  humiliated  himseK  only 
before  God  and  never  before  man,  and  to  whom  the 
English  people  are  largely  indebted  for  that  liberty 
which  has  made  them  foremost  among  the  peoples  of 
the  world.  The  same  religious  characteristics  that  are 
found  in  Cromwell,  and  the  leaders  of  the  civil  war, 
are  seen  also  in  those  who  led  resistance  in  the  Nether- 
lands against  the  tyranny  of  Spain,  and  above  all  in 
the  Pilgrim  fathers  who  consecrated  to  God  the  new 
world  in  the  West.  These  were  the  practical  results 
which  attested  the  power  of  a  living  belief  in  God, 
—  that  He  was  calling  men  to  the  execution  of  His 
wiU,  to  the  making  of  that  will  dominant  in  human 
society. 

So  long  as  external  events  called  out  the  heroic  side 
of  human  nature,  so  long  as  the  reformed  churches 
were  engaged  in  a  struggle  to  maintain  their  existence 
against  the  machinations  of  Rome,  the  Calvinistic  the- 
ology preserved  an  inward  life,  notwithstanding  its 
grave  defects.  The  human  heart  to  some  extent  un- 
consciously supplemented  its  deficiencies,  while  the 
wants,  the  necessities  which  it  failed  to  recognize,  were 
such  as  required  another  age  with  other  conditions  of 
life  in  order  to  their  full  appreciation.  Then  the  sys- 
tem would  appear  in  its  emptiness  and  hollow  for- 
mality, and  men  would  realize  that,  if  they  were  to 
retain  their  belief  in  God,  they  must  find  some  deeper, 
more  organic  relationship,  as  the  basis  of  the  divine 
communion  with  humanity. 


312     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

\  Even  in  the  age  when  it  was  at  its  best,  one  can  read 

the  painful  skepticism  which  it  engendered  in  the  writ- 
ings of  Pascal.  As  a  Jansenist,  devoted  to  the  spirit 
and  letter  of  the  Augustinian  theology  in  opposition 
to  the  Jesuits,  he  may  also  be  taken  as  the  most  illus- 
trious representative  of  Calvinism  on  its  intellectual 
side.  The  "  Thoughts  "  of  Pascal  reveal  the  tortures 
of  a  soul,  which,  in  its  search  for  God,  can  find  no 
ground  which  satisfies  the  reason,  and  falls  back  in 
a  spirit  akin  to  despair  upon  a  supposed  revelation 
which  defies  the  reason.  To  such  a  mind,  the  princi- 
ple of  Tertullian  affords  the  only  rationale  of  belief, 
—  to  accept  the  impossible  because  it  is  impossible ; 
to  find  the  evidence  of  truth  in  its  absurdity.  The 
attitude  of  Pascal  is  a  thorough -going  agnosticism^ 
which  sees  no  evidence  of  the  being  or  goodness  of 
God  in  the  nature  of  things,  or  the  constitution  of 
the  soul ;  his  faith  rests  upon  a  precarious  foundation 
which  the  intellect  refuses  to  examine.  How  could  a 
man  have  any  well-founded  confidence  in  the  reality  of 
a  divine  life  in  the  soul  who  could  write :  "  All  nature, 

1  "  II  serait  difficile  aujourd'hui,  apres  la  demonstration  victo- 
rieuse  de  M.  Cousin,  de  nier  que  dans  Pascal  se  rencontrent  k 
chaque  page  des  traits  qui  trahissent  un  absolu  scepticisme.  II 
attaque  la  philosophic  dans  ses  sources  psychologiques  en  niant  la 
legitimite  de  tous  nos  moyens  de  connaitre  ;  il  ebranle  la  morale 
et  la  religion  naturelle  en  niant  la  justice  et  en  n'admettant  que 
la  force  ;  il  ebranle  la  theologie  elle-meme  en  justifiant  I'athe- 
isme  comme  une  marque  de  force  d'esprit,  en  substituant  aux 
demonstrations  philosophiques  de  I'existence  de  Dieu  la  fameuse 
preuve  tiree  du  ealcul  des  probabilites  qu'il  venait  d'inventer, 
jouant  Dieu  a  croix  ou  pile.  II  n'est  pas  moins  sceptique  sur  les 
affections  que  sur  les  idees,  et  il  a  ecrit  cette  phrase  odieuse,  que 
Hobbes  ne  desavouerait  pas  ;  '  Les  homines  se  haissent  naturelle- 
ment  les  uns  les  autres." '  —  Janet,  Les  Maitres  de  la  Pensee 
Moderne,  p.  249. 


SKEPTICISM  OF  PASCAL.  313 

both  within  and  without  us  most  manifestly  declares  a 
God  withdrawn  from  us ; "  or  again :  "  The  appearance 
of  things  indicates  neither  the  total  abandonment,  nor 
the  manifest  presence,  of  the  Divinity,  but  the  presence 
of  a  God  that  hideth  Himself."  ^  "  The  strange  se- 
crecy impenetrable  to  the  view  of  man,  into  which  God 
has  retired,  is  an  impressive  lesson  to  teach  us  to  with- 
draw into  solitude  far  from  human  observation.  He 
remained  concealed  under  the  veil  of  nature  which 
hides  Him  from  us  until  the  incarnation,  and  when  it 
was  necessary  that  He  should  appear,  He  was  more 
fully  concealed  under  the  garb  of  humanity."  ^  How 
could  one  long  continue  to  believe  in  a  divine  revela- 
tion who  could  assert  that  out  of  all  the  world  God 
revealed  Himself  only  to  the  Jews,  and  that  all  other 
religions,  except  the  Christian,  are  notoriously  false.^ 
The  interest  attaching  to  Pascal  lies  in  the  fact  that 
he  endeavored  to  square  his  religious  experience  with 
a  formal  theology  which  he  accepted  as  revealed  truth. 
Other  men,  not  organized  like  him,  might  hold  their 
theology  somewhat  loosely,  living  by  convictions  which 
were  larger  than  their  thought.  Pascal  was  bent  on 
subduing  his  nature,  his  heart,  and  conscience  within 

*  PenseeSf  ed.  par  Louandre,  c.  xxi.  2. 

^  Lettres  a  Mademoiselle  de  Roannez  ;  Pensees,  ed.  Louajidre,  p. 
427. 

8  Pense'es,  p.  266.  Also  the  following  passages  :  "  L'homme 
n'est  done  que  deguisement,  que  mensonge  et  hypoerisie,  et  en 
soi-meme  et  k  I'egard  des  autres."  p.  141.  "  Dieu  etant  ainsi 
cache  toute  religion  qui  ne  dit  pas  que  Dieu  est  cache  n'est  pas 
veritable  ;  et  toute  religion  qui  n'en  rend  pas  la  raison,  n'est  pas 
instruisante.  La  ndtre  fait  tout  cela  :  Vere  tu  es  Deus  absconditus." 
(A  favorite  text  with  Pascal.)  p.  240.  "  L'abandon  de  Dieu  parait 
dans  les  Paiens  ;  la  protection  de  Dieu  parait  dans  les  Juifs." 
p.  321. 


314      TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

the  hard  and  narrow  limits  of  a  revived  Augustiniau- 
ism.^  A  distant  Deity,  an  absent  Saviour ;  humanity 
utterly  depraved  and  worthless,  life  full  of  vanity  and 
misery ;  a  dim  revelation  of  a  hidden  God  arbitrarily 
communicated  from  without,  and  full  of  difficulty,  to 
which  no  inward  voice  of  the  soul  responds  in  divine 
confirmation,  —  a  revelation  to  be  received,  if  at  all,  on 
the  authority  of  the  book ;  the  heavy  burden  of  an  in- 
dividual probation  or  responsibility  before  God,  not 
lightened  by  the  sense  of  solidarity  or  of  the  fellowship 
within  the  church,  as  the  old  mediaeval  theology  pre- 
sented it,  —  such  are  the  thoughts  of  Pascal,  full  of 
/       the  deepest  sadness,  of  an  unutterable  melancholy. 

^  There  is  a  suggestive  contrast  between  the  religious  experi- 
ence of  Pascal  and  of  George  Herbert.  The  latter  shared  in  the 
new  life  which  was  stirring  in  the  Church  of  England,  when  it 
broke  away  in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  from  the 
Calvinistic  theology.  Herbert,  while  still  retaining  the  dogmas 
of  a  Latinized  Christianity,  could  rise  as  a  poet  above  the  tram- 
mels of  his  theology  ;  he  had  escaped,  also,  from  the  depressing 
influence  of  an  individual  solitary  probation,  into  the  joyous  sense 
of  a  Christian  fellowship  which  was  under  the  dominion  of  a  law 
of  love.  Traces  of  the  struggle  against  the  limitations  of  his 
churchmanship  are  apparent  in  his  writings.  But  the  beautiful 
lines  entitled  the  "  Elixir "  show  how  at  times  the  spirit  tri- 
umphed, and  how  grand  and  complete  the  triumph  was.  They 
reflect  an  experience  to  which  Pascal  seems  to  have  been  a  stran- 
ger. They  imply  a  redeemed  world  where  man  through  his  kin- 
ship with  Deity  possesses,  as  it  were,  a  magic  spell  by  which  the 
commonest  things  may  be  transmuted  into  divine.  All  that  was 
highest  in  the  theology  of  Luther  and  Zwingle  was  working  as  a 
leaven  in  the  heart  of  Herbert  beneath  the  external  aspect  of  a 
representative  priest  of  the  Anglican  school. 

But  one  can  never  dwell  upon  the  deficiency  in  Pascal's  theol- 
ogy or  religious  life  without  deep  reluctance,  after  knowing  of 
the  physical  tortures  which  he  must  have  suffered  from  malfor- 
mation of  the  brain.  For  the  details  upon  the  results  of  an  au- 
topsy made  upon  his  body,  of.  Louandre,  p.  74. 


THE   WORLD  APART  FROM  THE  CHURCH.   315 

I. 

In  Pascal  may  be  seen  a  typical  illustration,  how- 
ever exaggerated,  of  the  religious  experience  gener- 
ated by  a  conscientious  adherence  to  the  Augustinian 
or  Calvinistic  theology.  It  is  not  surprising  to  dis- 
cover by  its  side  the  assertion  of  a  larger,  freer  life, 
the  unconscious  life  of  the  larger  world  moving  apart 
from  the  church,  with  elements  of  health  and  truth, 
with  a  sense  of  joy  and  triumph  which  cannot  be 
seen  within  the  ecclesiastical  confines.  A  Spenser,  a 
Raleigh,  a  Shakespeare,  are  the  best  representations 
in  some  respects  of  the  fullness  and  wealth  of  that 
promise  which  the  Reformation  in  its  maturity  did 
not  seem  to  have  reaped.  Lord  Bacon  was  at  the 
same  time  withdrawing  from  the  sphere  of  ecclesi- 
astical prerogative  the  rising  science  of  nature  which 
was  to  absorb  the  intellect  and  energy  of  coming  gen- 
erations. It  still  remains  doubtful  whether  he  spoke 
in  earnest  faith  when  he  put  revelation  and  the  church 
on  the  one  side,  and  the  natural  sciences  on  the  other, 
as  two  distinct  departments  of  life  which  had  no  con- 
nection with  each  other.  In  the  one,  reason  was  to  be 
discarded ;  in  the  other,  it  was  made  the  only  guide. 
The  spirit  of  enterprise  and  healthy  activity  which 
had  been  stimulated  by  the  discoveries  of  naviga- 
tion, especially  the  opening  of  the  new  world  in  the 
west,  does  not  seem  to  have  affected  the  ecclesiastical 
atmosphere.  The  absence  of  the  missionary  spirit  in 
the  Protestant  communities  is  a  fact  of  deep  signifi- 
cance. The  church  was  experiencing  the  gloom  which 
came  from  the  realization  that  the  bridegroom  was 
absent.  The  sense  of  melancholy  which  arose  when 
the  disciples  felt  themselves   bereaved   by  the  death 


816      TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

of  the  Master  must  remain  the  characteristic  of  the 
church's  life  until  the  higher  truth  should  be  experi- 
enced, that  He  had  risen  from  the  grave,  and  that  His 
life  has  become  the  immanent  spirit  of  life  in  a  re- 
deemed, regenerated  world. 

But  the  best  intellect  of  the  age  had  not  broken 
with  the  church  in  the  seventeenth  century,  nor  had 
the  line  of  real  progress  and  historical  continuity  been 
even  temporarily  sundered.  In  some  respects  the 
E-oman  Catholic  church,  especially  in  France,  ap- 
peared to  greater  advantage  than  Protestantism,  as 
in  a  certain  freedom  and  largeness  of  spiritual  ap- 
prehension. The  old  organization  was  renewing  its 
youth.i  ^]jQ  many  converts  it  received,  repelled  by 
the  coldness  and  severity  of  the  reformed  faith,  seemed 
to  point  to  the  failure  of  the  revolt  which  owned 
Luther  as  its  leader.  The  Jesuits  were  trading  suc-r 
cessfuUy  in  the  weaknesses  of  human  nature,  and  the 
ease  with  which  they  relaxed  all  moral  considerations 
would  have  made  them  more  dangerous  than  they 
were  had  not  the  heart  of  humanity  been  sound  at 
the  core.  But  Protestantism  remained  true,  in  theory 
at  least,  to  that  which  God  had  actually  accomplished 
by  the  hands  of  the  great  reformers.  In  rejecting 
monasticism  it  had  asserted,  more  forcibly  than  it 
knew,  that  the  world  was  redeemed  and  sacred,  that 
life  in  the  world  as  God  made  it  was  better  and 
higher  than  in  a  cloistered  world  of  man's  construc- 

1  The  seventeenth  century  was  an  age  of  missions  for  the  Ko- 
man  church.  The  relative  inactivity  of  Protestantism  was  owing 
to  causes  beyond  its  control;  among  others  to  an  inherent  weak- 
ness in  its  theological  attitude  which  was  not  overcome  till  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century.  But  the  development  of  North 
America  under  Protestant  auspices  must  be  regarded  as  part  of 
a  spiritual  history. 


PROTESTANT  MYSTICISM.  317 

tion ;  in  discarding  the  theory  of  sacramental  grace 
it  was  preparing  for  the  larger  sacrament  of  life  it- 
self, with  all  its  events  and  circumstances  ordered  for 
the  education  of  man ;  in  the  importance  attached  to 
preaching  lay  a  means  of  educing  the  divine  elements 
in  the  constitution  of  the  soul,  whose  fruits  must  ap- 
pear when  the  training  was  complete ;  in  the  attention 
concentrated  upon  Scripture  it  was  lq  reality  bringing 
the  consciousness  of  man  into  contact  with  the  highest 
expression  of  the  human  consciousness  as  revealed  in 
saints,  prophets,  and  apostles,  and  especially  ia  Him 
in  whom  the  consciousness  of  a  perfected  humanity 
found  its  absolute  and  perfect  utterance.  The  im- 
portance attached  to  individual  salvation,  as  against 
the  collective  salvation  through  the  medium  of  the 
church,  although  lacking  important  qualifications,  and 
resting  upon  a  false  conception  of  God,  was  the  one 
grand  truth  which  was  never  obscured,  in  whose  train 
must  inevitably  follow  a  higher  reverence  for  the  spirit 
in  man,  in  all  its  manifestations,  —  in  the  reason,  the 
moral  nature,  and  the  inward  sphere  of  the  affections. 
But  the  formal  Protestantism  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  as  represented  in  its  orthodox  systems  of 
theology,  contained  within  itself  the  seeds  of  its  ulti- 
mate dissolution.  Hardly  had  it  been  established 
when  the  protests  arose,  and  continued  to  increase 
in  extent  and  duration,  —  the  protests  of  humanity 
against  being  shut  out  from  the  presence  of  God. 
The  mystics  again  appear,  as  they  had  done  under 
somewhat  similar  circumstances  in  the  age  that  fol- 
lowed the  great  system-makers  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury. The  Lutheran  church  gave  birth  to  Amdt, 
who  endeavored,  in  a  popular  treatise  called  "  True 
Christianity,"  to  show  what  the  apostle  means  when 


318      TRADITIONAL  THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

he  says,  "  I  live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me.*'  ^ 
Jacob  Bohme  took  for  a  motto  these  words  ;  —  "  Our 
salvation  is  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  within  us."  Of 
the  books  which  he  had  written,  he  said,  "I  have 
written  not  from  human  teaching  or  knowledge  gained 
from  books,  but  from  my  own  book,  which  was  opened 
within  me."  The  Quietists  in  France,  represented  by 
Madam  Guion  and  Fenelon,  taught  that  God  was  to 
be  served  for  Himself  alone,  and  not  for  the  sake  of 
external  rewards  and  punishments;  that  the  end  of 
religion  was  to  find  Christ  living  within  the  soul.  The 
Quakers  in  England  declared  the  existence  of  an  "  in- 
ner light "  in  every  man  whereby  God  was  constantly 
revealing  Himself,  a  divine  light,  by  which  is  discerned 
the  meaning  and  the  truth  of  the  outward  revelation 
given  in  the  book.  Molinos,  the  Spaniard,  attached 
little  importance  to  outward  ritual  compared  with  the 
silent  inward  communion  of  the  soul  with  God.^     The 

1  Arndt's  True  Christianity  is  divided  into  four  books  :  1.  The 
Book  of  Scripture,  to  show  the  way  of  the  spiritual  life,  and  that 
Adam  ought  to  die  and  Christ  to  gain  the  ascendant  in  the  heart 
more  and  more  daily.  2.  The  Book  of  Life,  directing  the  Chris- 
tian to  rejoice  in  sufferings,  and  to  endure  persecutions  after 
Christ's  example.  3.  The  Book  of  Conscience,  wherein  the 
Christian  is  taught  to  recognize  the  kingdom  of  God  within  his 
own  heart.  4.  The  Book  of  Nature,  that  all  creation  leads  men 
to  the  knowledge  of  their  Creator. 

2  I  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  call  attention  to  the  de- 
fects and  mischievous  results  attendant  upon  all  these  move- 
ments known  as  mystic,  especially  as  they  were  not  illustrated 
upon  a  large  scale.  Their  historical  interest  lies  in  the  common 
protest  they  all  made  against  the  fundamental  principles  of 
Augustinianism,  whether  in  its  Latin  or  its  Protestant  forms. 
That  they  were  all  guilty,  more  or  less,  of  confusing  their  fancies 
with  a  divine  light  must  be  admitted.  But  this  was  just  the 
trouble  also  with  Augustine  and  with  Calvin. 


CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  FREEDOM.  319 

Pietists,  in  Germany,  sought  to  restore  Luther's  con- 
ception of  the  Bible,  as  the  mirror  of  religious  experi- 
ence, the  object  of  whose  study  was  to  deepen  the  life 
of  Christ  in  the  soul  rather  than  to  extract  isolated 
proof-texts  to  confirm  a  system  of  theology.  These 
and  similar  utterances  are  not  interesting  merely  as 
opinions ;  they  illustrate  the  workings  of  the  human 
consciousness  in  its  relation  to  God ;  they  bear  an  im- 
pressive testimony  to  the  truth  that  a  religion  can 
never  be  imposed  from  without,  or  become  authorita- 
tive, unless  it  be  the  expression  of  that  spirit  in  man 
upon  which  God  has  stamped  the  impress  of  His  own 
nature. 

There  were  other  lines  of  divine  activity  where  hu- 
mani^  was  struggling  to  realize  its  high  calling  in 
the  face  of  obstacles  which  could  only  be  overcome  by 
a  fierce  and  stubborn  resistance.  Hitherto  the  church 
had  been  indifferent  to  that  liberty  which  is  the  right- 
ful heritage  not  of  a  few,  but  of  all  men  in  virtue  of 
their  creation  in  the  image  of  God.  Hildebrand  had 
talked  of  the  liberty  of  the  church,  but  he  had  meant 
only  the  emancipation  of  the  clergy  from  secular  con- 
trol, in  order  to  their  more  complete  subjection  to  the 
authority  of  Kome.  The  hierarchy  of  the  Middle 
Ages  was  a  graded  system  by  which  the  clergy  repre- 
sented the  bishop,  the  bishops  represented  the  pope, 
and  the  pope  represented  God.  When  Luther  asserted 
the  rights  of  the  individual  conscience  against  all  ex- 
ternal authority,  he  had  given  the  principle  which  did 
away  with  all  artificial  castes,  whether  in  church  or 
state,  —  a  principle  by  which,  as  it  were,  every  man 
became  a  pope,  standing  in  immediate  relation  to  God, 
owning  no  other  or  higher  allegiance  than  the  will  of 
God  should  sanction.     But  a  lonfj  time  must  necessa- 


320     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

rily  elapse  between  the  declaration  of  a  principle  and 
its  realization.  The  struggle  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury for  civil  and  religious  freedom  was  wrapped  up 
as  in  a  germ  in  Luther's  attitude,  and  ever  since  the 
course  of  history  has  witnessed  one  continuous  effort 
to  secure  in  increasing  measure  the  liberty  which  is 
the  rightful  heritage  of  man. 

Luther  himself  was  well  aware  that  such  a  liberty 
could  only  come  to  those  who  were  prepared  to  receive 
it.  At  first  he  had  been  inclined  to  a  more  democratic 
constitution  of  the  church  than  he  afterwards  ap- 
proved. The  church  at  Hesse,  where  the  first  rough 
draft  of  the  changed  ecclesiastical  order  was  made, 
had  been  a  purely  democratic  one,  in  which  the  people 
were  to  rule,  and  the  popular  voice  was  to  administer 
discipline.  But  this  organization  did  not  commend 
itself  to  Luther's  judgment  when  he  became  more  im- 
pressed with  the  prevailing  popular  ignorance.  He  saw, 
also,  that  in  the  aristocratic  organization  of  German 
society,  the  nobility  and  the  princes  would  never  sub- 
mit to  be  controlled  in  religious  matters  by  the  voice 
of  the  people.  Hence  the  final  organization  of  the 
church  in  Germany  followed  the  social  order  ;  princes 
became  the  superintendents  or  bishops  over  the  clergy 
and  people,  forming,  together  with  their  body  of  ad- 
visers, a  sort  of  ecclesiastical  oligarchy.  The  consti- 
tution of  the  Lutheran  church  thus  assumed  a  sort  of 
hap-hazard,  accidental  character,  dictated  by  the  emer- 
gencies in  which  it  arose.  The  organization,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  the  Reformed  or  Calvinistic  churches 
was  based  upon  what  was  believed  to  be  a  divine  order 
revealed  in  Scripture.  In  the  place  of  the  ancient 
hierarchy,  which  was  abolished,  the  ecclesiastical  ad- 
ministration was  intrusted  to  the  body  of  the  clergy, 


THE   CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  321 

elders  or  presbyters,  who  ruled  like  the  hierarchy,  not 
in  the  name  of  the  people,  but  in  virtue  of  a  power  and 
commission  with  which  they  were  intrusted  by  God. 
Such  a  scheme  was  identical  in  principle  with  that  of 
the  Latin  church,  differing  from  it  only  in  appearance, 
or  in  so  far  as  it  was  modified  by  circumstances  which 
the  church  could  not  control. 

The  reformation  in  England  was  conducted  on  a 
method  of  its  own,  which  differs  widely  in  principle 
from  either  of  those  just  mentioned.  Its  peculiarity 
lay  in  the  fact  that  it  was  essentially  a  lay  movement 
originating  with  the  King  and  Parliament  rather  than 
with  the  clergy.  Convocation  led  in  no  reform,  nor 
had  it  any  disposition  to  do  so ;  the  bishops  and  clergy 
accepted  and  ratified  what  Parliament  dictated.  It 
was  the  laity  and  not  the  clergy  who  led  the  Church  of 
England  in  the  great  revolution  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury by  which  the  authority  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  was 
declared  no  longer  binding.  With  a  king  whose  au- 
thority was  practically  absolute,  and  a  submissive  clergy 
who  accepted  his  decree,  whether  voluntarily  or  not, 
there  was  no  necessity  and  indeed  no  moral  possibility 
of  abolishing  the  old  ecclesiastical  order.  The  Church 
of  England  continued  in  possession  of  the  church  prop- 
erty, the  bishops  remained  in  their  respective  sees, 
and  the  outward  aspect  of  the  church  was  substantially 
unchanged  by  the  revolution  which  had  deposed  its 
ancient  sovereign  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  In  such  a 
method  of  reform,  there  were  great  advantages ;  but 
it  also  involved  great  dangers.  The  Church  of  Eng- 
land, by  retaining  so  much  of  the  old  ecclesiastical 
order  and  ritual,  also  retained  and  bore  witness  to  the 
historical  continuity  of  the  church,  as  an  external  in- 
stitution, through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  time.     In  the 

21 


822     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON, 

reformed  churches  there  was  a  tendency  to  under- 
value this  principle ;  they  appeared  rather  as  "  new  " 
churches,  with  a  "new"  order  and  a  "new"  faith, 
while  the  Church  of  England  appeared  as  an  orderly 
growth,  with  its  roots  in  the  historic  consciousness  of 
humanity.  But  there  was  danger,  also,  that  the  old 
spirit  of  mediaeval  religion  would  linger  about  its  ac- 
customed haunts,  and  when  the  opportunity  offered 
reenter  and  take  possession. 

The  theory  of  the  church  which  underlay  the  Eng- 
lish reformation  —  the  tacitly  accepted,  working  the- 
ory, whether  avowed  or  not,  was  not  the  old  Latin 
idea  that  the  church  lay  in  the  hierarchy.  In  all  the 
changes  that  took  place,  there  was  implied  an  organic 
relationship  to  the  state;  the  king  was  regarded  as 
directly  and  primarily  the  anointed  of  God;  the 
church  was  simply  the  whole  nation  in  its  religious 
aspect,  for  whose  weU  being  the  king  was  as  directly 
responsible  as  for  its  civil  order  and  prosperity.  The 
worst  that  is  usually  said  against  such  a  theory  is  that 
it  is  Erastian,  whatever  that  may  mean.  Cranmer 
regarded  the  bishops  as  holding  their  jurisdiction  from 
the  king,  and  on  the  accession  of  Edward  VI.  took  out 
a  new  commission  of  authority.  This  theory  prevailed 
through  the  long  reign  of  Elizabeth  before  it  yielded 
to  another  conception  of  the  church  and  a  different 
view  of  the  relations  of  church  and  state.  But  the 
older  view,  Erastianism,  if  it  must  be  so  known,  has 
given  to  the  Church  of  England  its  peculiar  charm  and 
its  most  distinctive  merit. 

The  Church  of  England  produced  no  great  theolo- 
gian and  followed  no  one  special  type  of  theology.  It 
represented  in  the  age  of  the  Reformation  the  large 
communis  sensus  of  the  people,  so  far  as  they  were 


ITS  ATTITUDE   TOWARD   THEOLOGY,      323 

educated  to  speak  for  themselves.  The  influence  of 
Luther  and  of  Calvin  is  apparent  in  the  articles  of 
religion,  but  it  nowhere  appears  as  bondage  to  the  ipse 
dixit  of  a  man.  Justification  by  faith  only  is  clearly 
set  forth  with  no  evasive  qualification.  The  doctrine 
of  predestination  is  admitted,  but  a  caution  is  given 
against  its  abuse.  The  highest  reverence  is  expressed 
for  Scripture ;  yet  there  is  no  worship  of  the  letter ;  it 
was  enough  to  declare  that  "  it  contains  all  things  nec- 
essary to  salvation."  Tradition  is  rejected  as  an  ab- 
solute authority,  when  it  is  affirmed  that  the  creeds 
are  to  be  received  because  they  have  the  warrant  of 
Holy  Scripture,  not  because  they  are  given  on  the  au- 
thority of  the  church.  And  yet  tradition  is  regarded 
as  having  a  value  which  forbids  it  from  being  entirely 
thrown  aside,  in  that  the  old  ritual  is  not  discarded 
but  modified,  or  when  it  is  asserted  that  the  govern- 
ment of  the  church  is  in  accordance  with  ancient  cus- 
tom. The  definition  of  the  church  has  the  true  Prot- 
estant ring,  when  it  is  affirmed  to  be  the  "  congregation 
of  faithful  men,"  and  not  the  mysterious  impersona- 
tion of  Latin  Christianity.  The  large  practical  wis- 
dom of  the  reformers  is  seen  in  the  absolute  rejection 
of  that  which  the  reason  has  demonstrated  false,  such 
as  image-worship,  purgatory,  and  transubstantiation, 
and  a  cautious  tone  prevails  where  there  is  room  for 
difference  of  opinion.  In  one  respect,  and  that  the 
most  significant  of  all,  the  Church  of  England  as- 
sumed a  position  which  no  other  communion  had  dared 
or  been  willing  to  take.  It  not  only  does  not  assert  its 
own  infallibility,  but  it  declares  that  other  churches 
have  erred  in  matters  pertaining  to  the  faith — a  posi- 
tion from  which  the  only  inference  is  that  it  does  not 
claim  for  itself  the  infallibility  which  it  has  denied  to 


324     TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

them.  The  clergy  are  called  upon  to  be  faithful  to 
their  conscience,  and  to  teach  nothing  as  requisite  for 
salvation  in  which  their  private  judgment  of  Scripture 
does  not  concur ;  nor  is  any  provision  made  for  the 
exigency  of  their  conscience  leading  them  in  opposi- 
tion to  what  may  be  at  any  time  the  prevailing  inter- 
pretation of  the  church's  standards.  The  predominant 
tendency  in  its  standards  is  to  throw  the  clergy  back 
upon  their  conscience  as  enlightened  by  the  word  of 
God. 

Such  an  attitude  may  appear  to  the  dogmatist  or  to 
the  skeptic  as  essentially  weak  and  unworthy ;  but  to 
the  eye  of  faith,  which  acknowledges  an  infinite  Spirit 
of  truth,  pledged  to  lead  humanity  into  an  ever- 
increasing  knowledge  of  the  truth,  it  is  the  highest, 
sublimest  attitude  that  a  church  can  assume.  And 
the  Church  of  England  has  been  true,  in  the  main,  to 
the  idea  which  was  implanted  in  its  constitution  in  the 
plastic  moment  of  its  rebirth ;  it  has  remained  open 
to  all  the  tides  of  thought  and  spiritual  life  which 
have  swept  over  the  nation ;  it  has  been  able  to  retain 
in  its  fold  those  whom  no  other  form  of  organized 
Christianity  could  tolerate. 

The  power  of  the  Church  of  England  lay  not  so 
much  in  its  formal  theology  as  in  its  liturgy.  The 
Prayer-Book  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  people, 
as  an  educating,  elevating  influence,  whose  intention 
was  to  raise  the  laity  to  a  sense  of  their  equality  with 
the  clergy,  as  participants  in  the  spiritual  priesthood 
of  all  Christians.  "There  have  been  few  things," 
says  a  recent  writer,  "  which  have  affected  the  char- 
acter of  the  modern  English  more  than  the  liturgy." 
"  The  Prayer-Book,"  said  Dean  Milman,  "  is  the  best 
model  of  pure,   fervent,  single   devotion  as  it  were, 


ITS  LITURGY  AND  ORDER.  325 

and  concentration  of  all  the  orisons  which  have  been 
uttered  in  the  name  of  Christ  since  the  first  days  of 
the  gospel ;  that  liturgy  which  is  the  great  example  of 
pure  vernacular  English,  familiar  yet  always  un vulgar ; 
of  which  but  few  words  and  phrases  have  become  ob- 
solete, which  has  an  indwelling  music,  which  enthralls 
and  never  palls  upon  the  ear,  with  the  full  living  ex- 
pression of  every  great  Christian  truth,  yet  rarely 
hardening  into  stern  dogmatism,  satisfying  every  need 
and  awakening  and  answering  every  Christian  emo- 
tion, entering  into  the  heart,  and,  as  it  were,  welling 
forth  again  from  the  heart,  the  full  and  general  voice 
of  the  congregation,  yet  the  peculiar  utterance  of  each 
single  worshiper."  "In  many  respects,"  said  Ma- 
caulay,  "  it  was  well  for  the  Church  of  England  that 
in  an  age  of  exuberant  zeal  her  principal  founders 
were  mere  politicians.  To  this  circumstance  she  owes 
her  moderate  articles,  her  decent  ceremonies,  her  noble 
and  pathetic  liturgy.  Her  worship  is  not  disfigured 
by  mummery,  yet  she  has  preserved,  in  a  far  higher 
degree  than  have  her  Protestant  sisters,  that  art  of 
striking  the  senses  and  filling  the  imagination  in 
which  the  Catholic  church  so  eminently  excels." 

The  Church  of  England  retained  the  threefold  order 
of  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons,  as  it  was  to  be  found 
by  reading  Scripture  and  ancient  authors,  but  a  change 
was  made  in  that  order  which  completely  transformed 
its  character.  From  the  time  when  Tertullian  wrote 
his  "  Prescription  of  Heretics "  the  belief  had  begun 
to  prevail  in  the  Latin  church  that  to  the  bishops 
had  been  intrusted  the  guardianship  of  the  Christian 
revelation ;  that  to  them  alone  had  been  primarily 
committed  the  "  deposit "  of  faith,  whose  integrity  they 
guaranteed  in  a  continuous  line  of  descent  through  the 


326     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

ages.  Hence  had  originated  the  bishop's  vow  at  his 
consecration  to  "  defend  the  faith  and  to  banish  and 
drive  away  from  the  church  all  erroneous  and  strange 
doctrine  contrary  to  God's  word."  The  Church  of 
England  at  the  Reformation  showed  its  sense  of  the 
change  which  had  come  over  Christendom  by  in- 
trusting to  the  presbyter  the  same  guardianship  as 
had  hitherto  devolved  alone  on  the  bishop,  requiring 
from  him  at  his  ordination  the  same  identical  vow.^ 
By  this  simple  change  the  clergy  ceased  to  be  mere 
creatures  of  the  bishop,  representing  the  bishop  in 
their  respective  parishes,  as  had  been,  and  still  is,  their 
position  in  the  Latin  church;  they  became  the  spirit- 
ual representatives  of  the  congregation,  charged  with 
the  responsibility  of  inquiring  for  themselves  into  the 
nature  of  the  Christian  revelation,  and  of  presentkig 
to  the  people  that  only  which  they  believed  had  the 
sure  warrant  of  Holy  Scripture.  Thus  the  Church  of 
England  had  secured,  without  discarding  the  episco- 
pate, that  which  the  reformed  churches  of  the  con- 
tinent had  only  been  able  to  secure  by  the  abolition  of 
the  ancient  order. 

^  "  I  call  this,"  says  Bishop  Hampden,  "  a  very  remarkable 
injunction  of  the  Service  for  the  Ordination  of  Priests ;  because, 
in  no  other  church  is  the  like  commission  given  to  any  other  but 
to  the  highest  order  of  the  ministry,  the  bishops  of  the  church 
exclusively.  Neither  in  the  Greek  forms  of  ordination,  nor  in  the 
Roman  Pontifical,  do  we  find  any  such  charge  given  to  the  min- 
isters of  the  inferior  orders,  but  only  to  the  bishops.  All  that  is 
exacted  of  the  priest  and  the  deacon,  according  to  the  formu- 
laries of  the  Greek  and  Roman  churches,  is  the  promise  of  obedi- 
ence to  the  bishops ;  an  absolute  and  summary  power  being  vested 
in  the  bishop  to  restrain  and  censure  them  at  his  discretion.'* 
Memorials  of  Bishop  HampdeUf  p.  196. 


THE  CHURCH  AND   THE  PURITANS.      327 

II. 

When  the  church  was  established,  under  Queen 
Elizabeth,  in  the  shape  which  it  still  substantially 
retains,  it  was  confronted  by  another  theory  of  the 
church  and  the  ministry,  which  was  plainly  irrecon- 
cilable with  its  own.  The  Puritans,  or,  as  they  were 
afterwards  known,  the  Presbyterians,  had  derived 
from  Calvin  the  principle  that  the  clergy  held  a 
divine  commission  directly  from  God  to  teach  a  sys- 
tem of  authoritative  doctrine,  and  in  God's  name  to 
rule  and  administer  discipline  in  the  congregation. 
From  such  a  point  of  view  the  order  of  the  Church 
of  England  was  plainly  opposed  to  Scripture,  in  which 
discipline  no  longer  existed,  where  authority  was  vested 
in  the  sovereign,  or  in  a  body  like  Parliament,  of  which 
the  great  majority  were  laymen.  The  inevitable  con- 
flict was  precipitated  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity  put 
forth  by  Parliament  in  1559,  which  made  the  use  of 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  binding  upon  the  clergy 
and  the  people  throughout  the  kingdom.  Whatever 
the  bishops  may  have  thought  regarding  their  own 
prerogative,  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  fact  that  Queen 
Elizabeth  regarded  them  as  convenient  servants  of  the 
crown,  for  enforcing  its  will  throughout  their  jurisdic- 
tions. The  Puritan  or  Presbyterian  clergy,  who  were 
not  yet  separated  as  a  body  from  the  communion  of 
the  church,  resisted  the  law  which  commanded  the  use 
of  the  Prayer-Book,  and  soon  passed  from  the  stage 
of  hostility  to  the  petty  details  of  ritual,  to  a  denial 
of  the  authority  of  bishops  to  enforce  its  use ;  the 
episcopate  was  denounced  as  a  "  man-made  "  institu- 
tion, having  no  sanction  in  Scripture  ;  and  gradually 
the  feeling  arose  that  it  was  a  Christian  duty  to  sepa- 


328     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

rate  from  their  communion.  When  the  state  entered 
into  the  struggle,  and  bishops  and  sovereign  endeav- 
ored to  enforce  uniformity  and  to  suppress  the  ob- 
noxious dissidents,  the  Puritans  entered  the  third 
stage  of  the  controversy  and  resisted  the  arbitrary 
policy  of  the  crown.  Thus  was  precipitated  the  civil 
war,  which  led  to  the  temporary  establishment  of  the 
commonwealth  under  the  protectorate  of  Cromwell, 
and  the  momentary  ascendency  of  Presbyterianism. 

The  controversy  about  church  authority  is  interest- 
ing because  it  concealed  deeper  issues  than  the  com- 
batants on  either  side  acknowledgeiJ.  Before  speaking 
of  the  ultimate  consequences  which  flowed  from  it,  the 
positions  assumed  on  either  side  deserve  a  brief  con- 
sideration. Hooker,  the  greatest  intellect  whom  the 
Church  of  England  had  then  produced,  and  who  died 
.as  the  seventeenth  century  was  opening,  had  taken  the 
ground,  in  the  first  five  books  of  his  "  Church  Polity," 
that  the  organization  of  the  church  was  not  to  be  de- 
duced from  Scripture,  but  was  a  thing  to  be  judged 
and  regulated  by  common  sense,  and  convenience. 
Even  if  it  were  not  found  in  the  Bible,  it  was  no  less 
divine,  because  all  established  order  was  divine,  hav- 
ing its  basis  in  the  very  bosom  of  God,  from  whom  all 
law  acquired  its  sacred  and  binding  character.  Even 
if  the  order  of  bishops  was  a  "man-made"  institu- 
tion, as  the  Puritans  alleged,  and  its  origin  and  growth 
could  be  traced  in  the  early  church,  coming  out  of  an 
antecedent  order  of  some  other  kind,  yet,  as  Hooker 
reasoned,  that  did  not  impugn  its  divineness,  provided 
it  was  convenient  for  the  maintenance  of  the  well-be- 
ing of  the  church.^     But  such  a  lofty  and  comprehen- 

^  Or,  in  the  words  of  Matthew  Arnold,  "  Hooker's  great  work 
against  the  impugners  of  the  order  and  discipline  of  the  Church 


THE  PRINCIPLE  INVOLVED,  329 

sive  conception  of  the  true  nature  of  church  govern- 
ment did  not  commend  itself  either  to  the  bishops  or 
the  Puritan  clergy.  The  Church  of  England  had  in- 
sensibly imbibed  the  Puritan  view  that  Scripture  con- 
tained an  authoritative  revelation  not  only  of  a  system 
of  doctrine,  but  of  church  government  as  well.  More- 
over, it  was  not  in  the  nature  of  bishops,  when  their 
order  was  attacked  as  a  "  man-made  "  institution,  not 
to  resent  the  charge.^  From  this  time  we  hear  again 
the  familiar  refrain  in  Bancroft,  Andrews,  Laud,  and 
others,  of  that  doctrine  of  apostolic  succession,  which 
had  been  elaborated  in  the  Latin  church  under  Ter- 
tullian,  Irenaeus,  and  Cyprian. 

of  England  was  written  (and  this  is  too  indistinctly  seized  by 
many  who  read  it),  not  because  Episcopalianism  is  essential,  but 
because  its  impugners  maintained  that  Presbyterianism  is  essen- 
tial and  that  Episcopalianism  is  sinful."  Culture  and  Anarchy,  p. 
xxxvii.  See,  also.  Hunt,  Relig.  Thought  in  England^  i.  pp.  57,  58. 
The  following  passage  from  Hooker  would  seem  to  be  sufficient 
to  put  all  doubt  upon  this  point  to  an  end  :  — 

"  Which  divisions  and  contentions  might  have  easily  been  pre- 
vented, if  the  orders  which  each  church  did  think  fit  and  conven- 
ient for  itself  had  not  so  peremptorily  been  established  under 
high  commanding  form,  which  tendered  them  unto  the  people  as 
things  everlastingly  required  by  the  law  of  that  Lord  of  Hosts 
against  whose  statutes  there  is  no  exception  to  be  taken.  For  by 
this  it  came  to  pass  that  one  church  could  not  but  condemn  an- 
other of  disobedience  to  the  will  of  Christ."     Keble's  ed.  p.  161. 

^  The  "  Preface  "  to  the  Ordinal  is  conceived  in  the  spirit  of 
Cranmer  and  Hooker  rather  than  in  that  of  Bancroft  and  Laud. 
It  affirms  it  to  be  evident  from  the  study  of  Scripture  and  an- 
cient authors  that  there  have  always  been  these  three  orders  in 
the  church,  and  that  their  maintenance,  so  strictly  preserved,  tes- 
tifies to  their  importance — a  general  statement  which  commands 
assent  on  the  ground  of  its  apparent  truth.  But  this  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  saying  that  Scripture  contains  a  definite 
form  of  church  government  which  is  unalterably  binding  by  di- 
vine command,  that  it  is  a  part  of  the  revelation  which  Christ 
came  to  bring,  and  that  to  dissent  from  it  is  of  the  nature  of  sin. 


330     TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

The  hostility  of  the  leaders  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land to  the  Puritans  led  them  also  to  dislike  that  sys- 
tem of  doctrine  which,  under  the  name  of  Calvinism, 
had  been  accepted  to  a  large  extent  in  the  church  dur- 
ing the  sixteenth  century,  which  had  been  taught  at 
its  great  universities  and  held  by  its  great  divines.^ 
There  grew  up  in  consequence  a  system  of  theology  in 
the  Church  of  England  widely  remote  from  that  which 
the  reformers  had  accepted,  the  details  of  which  are 
so  familiar  that  it  is  only  necessary  to  allude  to  them. 
The  church  became  again  practically  identified  with 
the  episcopate  —  a  personification  as  it  were  of  Deity 
Himself,  a  mysterious  entity  intrusted  with  the  divine 
gifts  necessary  for  human  salvation ;  the  sacraments 
became  the  channels  of  grace ;  baptism  secured  the  re- 
mission of  original  sin,  and  implanted  in  the  soul  a 
principle  of  life,  which  was  nourished  in  the  Eucha- 
rist ;  the  bishops  conveyed  to  the  clergy,  by  a  tactual 
process,  the  power  to  administer  the  sacraments  with 
validity.  The  ritual  became  more  ornate,  a  tendency 
appeared  to  restore  the  confessional  and  the  custom 
of  praying  for  the  dead,  tradition  resumed  its  old  au- 
thority, and  the  church  claimed  to  be  the  custodian 
and  interpreter  of  Scripture.  While  all  this  was  a 
return  to  the  spirit  of  Latin  Christianity,  yet  there 
were  also  elements  in  what  is  known  as  High  Angli- 
canism, which  may  be  interpreted  as  a  desire  to  restore 
neglected  truths  which  Puritanism  had  discarded.  In 
the  doctrine  of  baptismal  regeneration,  as  asserted  by 
seventeenth  century  divines,  as  well  as  in  other  fea- 

^  Calvin's  Institutes  had  been  used  as  a  text-book  at  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Archbishop  Whitgift 
had  endeavored  to  get  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles  amended  so  as 
to  include  the  distinctive  points  of  the  Calvinistic  theology. 


RISE   OF  HIGH  ANGLICANISM.  331 

tures  of  the  system,  we  may  discern  an  effort,  however 
blind,  to  escape  from  tlie  arbitrary  principle  of  elec- 
tion as  taught  by  the  Puritans,  by  resting  the  Chris- 
tian life  upon  a  larger  basis  in  some  universal  law. 
The  reverence  for  antiquity  was  the  expression  of  the 
feeling  that  all  truth  must  have  its  roots  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  past.  The  importance  assigned  to 
the  principle  of  salvation  through  the  church,  instead 
of  by  individual  effort,  may  be  viewed  as  a  desire  to 
regain  the  sense  of  the  solidarity  or  collective  life  of 
the  human  family  in  opposition  to  the  individualism 
which,  by  making  men  stand  alone  in  solitary  isolation, 
threatened  to  disintegrate  the  sacred  fellowship  of  hu- 
manity. 

But  whatever  interpretation  we  may  claim  as  the 
under-current  of  a  movement,  which  on  its  face  was 
a  feeble  imitation  of  mediaeval  Christianity,  the  im- 
portant fact  remains  to  emphasize  that  in  .England  in 
the  seventeenth  century  two  systems  confronted  each 
other,  each  calling  itself  divine,  each  claiming  for  its 
clergy  a  divine  appointment  and  sanction,  each  declar- 
ingf  the  other  false  and  untrue  to  the  word  of  God. 
As  time  went  on,  there  gTew  up  a  third  movement 
known  as  Independency  or  Congregationalism,  which 
denounced  Presbyterianism  as  unscriptural,  and  de- 
manded for  the  laity  a  place  in  the  government  of  the 
church.  The  Independents  not  only  deduced  from  the 
Bible  a  still  different  form  of  church  government  from 
any  hitherto  taught,  but  they  took  a  further  step  to- 
ward dissolving  the  larger  fellowship  of  Christendom 
by  declaring  the  entire  and  absolute  independence 
of  the  local  body  of  believers.  It  remained  for  the 
movement  known  as  the  Baptist,  which  followed  on 
the  heels  of  Independency,  to  finally  dispel  the  larger 


332     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON, 

vision  of  a  redeemed  humanity  in  which  even  uncon- 
scious children  participated,  and  of  which  infant  bap- 
tism might  be  regarded  as  an  expressive  symbol.  The 
Baptists  were  only  more  consistent  interpreters  of  Cal- 
vin's theology  than  their  predecessors.  So  long  as  the 
incarnation  was  resolved  into  an  arrangement  for  sav- 
ing from  the  consequences  of  sin,  or  for  securing  the 
salvation  of  the  elect,  the  baptism  of  children  was  an 
unintelligible  performance ;  it  was  pointing  to  another 
and  higher  interpretation  of  the  incarnation  of  which 
no  trace  is  discerned  in  the  Puritan  theology — the 
actual  redemption  of  all  mankind.  The  number  of 
sects  received  one  further  addition  by  the  appearance 
of  the  Quakers,  who  also  drew  from  Scripture  the  tenet 
that  a  regularly  constituted  and  educated  ministry  was 
unnecessary,  and  even  an  injury  to  the  well-being  of 
a  true  church.  The  hireling  clergy,  as  they  were 
called,  were  only  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  inner 
revelation  of  the  spirit.  The  churches,  to  the  mind  of 
the  Quakers,  had  all  alike  missed  the  true  reading  of 
Scripture  in  adherence  to  outward  worship  and  visible 
sacraments. 

It  is  an  interesting  question  why  in  England  differ- 
ing religious  opinions  should  have  been  embodied  in 
hostile  organizations,  when  in  Germany  they  rarely 
led  to  separation  from  the  Lutheran  communion.  It 
was  owing  in  a  great  measure  to  the  attitude  of  the 
Tudor  sovereigns  in  enforcing  their  will  upon  the  na- 
tion, a  policy  which  the  Stuart  dynasty  endeavored  to 
follow  out  when  the  age  would  no  longer  endure  it. 
But  the  fullest  answer  to  such  an  inquiry  must  admit 
an  ulterior  element  in  the  problem,  —  that  God  had 
chosen  England  as  the  theatre  in  which  the  develop- 
ment of  human  freedom  should  be  exhibited  for  the 


MORAL   OF  THE  PURITAN  STRUGGLE.     333 

benefit  of  the  larger  world.  The  moral  of  the  Puritan 
struggle  against  the  authority  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land does  not  lie,  as  some  fondly  think,  in  the  con- 
fusion and  enmities  which  arise  when  ecclesiastical 
uniformity  is  broken  down.  The  confusion  may  be 
only  the  sign  of  a  deeper  life.  The  evils  of  the  sec- 
tarian spirit,  the  divisions  and  subdivisions  of  relig- 
ious parties,  undoubtedly  weakened  the  true  church 
idea,  which  aims  at  the  largest,  most  comprehensive 
human  fellowship  as  the  truest  expression  of  the  one 
common  spirit  that  indwells  in  humanity.^  But  Kttle 
as  the  actors  in  the  great  struggle  might  discern  its 
full  significance,  it  can  now  be  seen  that  the  confu- 
sions eventually  ministered  to  a  higher  order.  The 
rigid,  invincible  exclusiveness  of  hostile  sects  became 
the  indispensable  condition  for  obtaining  religious  tol- 
eration. It  was  for  civil  and  religious  freedom  that 
the  English  people  had  been  blindly  striving  through 
all  the  confused  and  complicated  struggles  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  When  the  principle  of  religious 
toleration  had  been  acknowledged,  the  confusions  and 

*  How  great  these  evils  were  is  shown  by  the  contemporaneous 
testimony  of  witnesses  who  themselves  contributed  largely  to  the 
confusions  of  their  time.  "  We  are  a  people,"  said  Cromwell, 
"  that  have  been  unhinged  these  twelve  years  ;  as  if  scattering 
and  division  and  confusion  came  upon  us  like  things  that  we  de- 
sired, these  which  are  the  greatest  plagues  that  God  ordinarily 
lays  upon  nations  for  sin."  Milton,  in  the  latter  years  of  his  life, 
is  described  as  attending  no  place  of  public  worship  ;  "  he  was 
above  the  sects  and  loathed  their  mutual  jarrings."  Bunyan, 
who  was  a  Baptist,  said,  "  I  would  be  and  hope  I  am  a  Christian. 
But  as  for  those  factious  titles  of  Ana-Baptists,  Independents, 
Presbyterians,  and  the  like,  I  conclude  that  they  came  neither 
from  Jerusalem  nor  Antioch,  but  rather  from  hell  and  Babylon. 
For  they  naturally  tend  to  divisions  :  You  may  know  them  by 
their  fruits." — Quoted  from  Curteis's  Bampton  Lectures^  p.  227. 


834     TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON 

the  enmities  subsided,  and  England  entered  into  the 
serene  and  placid  atmosphere  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. 

III. 

The  eighteenth  century  occupies  a  large  and  impor- 
tant place  in  the  history  of  Christian  thought.  The 
traditional  theology,  as  it  had  been  developed  in  the 
Latin  church,  as  it  had  descended  unchanged  in  its 
fundamental  aspects  to  the  Protestant  theologians  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  was  now  compelled  to  enter 
into  conflict  with  the  human  reason.  Once  before,  in 
the  time  of  Abelard,  a  similar  process  had  been  sum- 
marily arrested  by  the  power  of  the  church ;  but  no 
power  now  existed  which  could  hinder  its  progress. 
The  movement  which  defied  the  traditional  theology 
may  be  said  to  date  from  the  English  Revolution  in 
1688,  when  religious  toleration  was  granted  to  the  dis- 
senting sects.  In  the  course  of  its  development  every 
dogma  of  the  church  was  assaulted,  whether  in  its 
Latin  or  its  Protestant  form.  How  far  we  still  are 
from  a  common  understanding  in  regard  to  the  work 
of  the  eighteenth  century  is  shown  by  the  divergent 
estimates  of  its  significance  in  our  own  day :  to  some 
it  appears  as  if  inspired  by  an  evil  agency  for  the  de- 
struction of  the  truth ;  to  others,  a  necessary  part  in 
a  divine  process  by  which  God  was  taking  away  the 
old  that  he  might  establish  the  new. 

Before  speaking  of  the  movement  known  as  deism, 
or  rationalism,  it  is  necessary  to  revert  once  more, 
even  at  the  risk  of  repetition,  to  the  place  in  history 
which  is  occupied  by  the  seventeenth  century.  It  is 
here  that  the  clew  is  apt  to  be  lost  by  the  student  of 
religious  thought.     The  political  history  of  the  period 


THEOLOGICAL  RETROGRESSION, 

which  follows  the  Reformation  has  beei 
and  impartially  explored ;  but  in  the  hist! 
ogy  there  stiU  exists  confusion,  owing  fc 
part  to  the  continued  rivalry  of  the  sects 
took  their  rise,  which  still  nourish  the  preju( 
that  remote  epoch  as  part  of  a  sacred  heritage, 
now,  there  are  those  to  whom  the  names  of  Charles  I. 
or  of  Archbishop  Laud  are  dear  as  martyrs  for  the 
truth,  with  whom  the  name  of  Baxter  is  a  laughing- 
stock, and  the  memory  of  Cromwell  is  execrated. 
Churchmen  cannot  forget  or  forgive,  much  less  ex- 
plain, the  mortal  insult  to  the  establishment  in  the 
civil  war;  Presbyterians  and  their  Puritan  sympa- 
thizers are  still  painfully  affected  when  they  recaU  the 
Act  of  Uniformity  of  1662,  with  the  sufferings  it  en- 
tailed upon  their  ancestors. 

The  difficulty  in  tracing  the  line  of  progress  in 
theological  thought  through  this  age  of  confusion  is 
owing  also  to  the  fact  that  theology  seems  to  have  gone 
backward,  reverting  again  to  those  principles  of  Latin 
Christianity  which  the  Reformation  had  discarded. 
The  influence  of  Zwingle  ceased  to  be  felt  after  the 
rise  of  Calvin.  In  the  Lutheran  systems  of  theology 
of  the  seventeenth  century  one  can  scarcely  hear  the 
voice  of  Luther.  His  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith 
was  so  changed  as  hardly  to  be  recognized ;  his  free- 
dom in  the  use  of  Scripture  gave  way  to  a  bondage  to 
the  letter  which  put  the  Bible  in  the  place  of  Christ ; 
the  rights  of  private  judgment  were  usurped  by  a  tra- 
ditional method  of  biblical  interpretation.  In  Eng- 
land the  comprehensive  spirit  and  lofty  ethical  tone 
of  the  reformers,  such  as  Cranmer,  Jewell,  or  Hooker, 
yielded  in  the  next  age  to  the  contracted  vision  and 
narrow  ecclesiastical  policy  of  men    like  Bancroft, 


836     TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

Andrews,  or  Laud.  Calvinism  alone  continued  to 
thrive  in  its  native  purity,  whether  on  the  continent 
or  in  England. 

The  cause  of  this  theological  retrogression  must  be 
sought  in  the  great  Catholic  reaction  which  was  led 
by  the  Jesuits.  Even  before  the  death  of  Luther  it 
had  become  apparent  that  the  immediate  result  of  the 
Keformation  had  been  to  put  two  armies  in  the  field 
which  must  prepare  for  battle.  The  old  church,  after 
awakening  from  the  lethargy  in  which  the  Reforma- 
tion found  it,  determined  upon  the  effort  to  regain 
what  it  had  lost.  The  wars  in  the  Netherlands,  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  in  Germany,  the  papal  intrigues 
against  the  throne  in  England,  have  their  counterpart 
in  the  theological  controversies  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  When  the  Jesuits  arose,  declaring  that  the 
maligned  church  of  the  Middle  Ages,  with  all  its 
abuses  and  corruptions,  with  its  services  and  ritual, 
and  offices  of  every  kind,  was  consecrated  by  the  will 
of  God,  —  that  to  touch  any,  even  the  least  of  these, 
for  the  purpose  of  reform,  was  to  raise  one's  hand 
against  God ;  when,  in  the  strength  of  this  conviction, 
they  went  forth  everywhere  to  restore  the  old  order, 
regarding  every  means  as  justifiable  which  conduced 
to  such  a  meritorious  end,  it  was  necessary  that  Prot- 
estantism should  step  down  from  the  heights  it  had 
occupied  in  a  great  creative  epoch,  and  gird  itself 
for  the  conflict  with  a  deadly  foe  by  borrowing  its 
armor. 

It  is  here  that  Calvinism  finds  its  place  in  the 
philosophy  of  history.  Its  merit  lay  in  its  ability  to 
resist  Jesuitism  on  its  own  ground.  It  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  identify  Calvin's  opinions  with  the  divine  will. 
In  this  respect  its  audacity  may  be  equalled,  but  is 


CONTROVERSY  WITH  ROME.  337 

not  surpassed,  by  the  disciples  of  Loyola.  Calvinism 
was  the  fio^hting:  mood  of  the  Reformation.  It  de- 
serves  admiration  and  praise  for  what  it  accomplished, 
as  do  the  sovereigns  of  England,  Henry  VIII.  and 
Queen  Elizabeth,  for  their  devotion  to  the  principle 
of  absolute  government,  or  the  Stuarts  and  High 
Anglicans  for  their  assertion  of  divine  right,  which 
did  much  to  save  the  national  independence  against 
the  intrigues  of  Rome. 

The  theological  entrenchment  which  was  built  up  in 
the  emergency  of  the  conflict  with  Rome,  and  chiefly 
under  the  inspiration  of  Calvin,  was  the  authority  of 
Scripture  as  a  communication  from  God,  miraculously 
given  and  preserved,  to  whose  teaching  reason  and 
tradition  must  bow,  —  an  authority  supreme  in  all 
that  related  to  the  doctrine,  the  worship,  and  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  church.  To  have  held  with  Luther, 
that  Scripture  was  to  be  tested  by  the  inward  experi- 
ence, or  with  Zwingle,  that  there  was  an  inner  word 
of  God  in  the  human  reason,  by  which  the  word  of 
God,  as  given  in  the  book,  was  to  be  judged,  —  posi- 
tions like  these  were  thought  to  be  of  little  avail  in 
the  controversy  with  Rome.  To  have  allowed  the 
reason  to  examine  or  criticise  the  contents  of  the  Bible 
would  have  been  to  weaken  its  authority.^  Its  very 
style  and  letter  had  been  dictated  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  men  who  acted  as  only  mechanical  amanuenses ;  no 
human  element  had  been  permitted  to  participate  in 

^  The  Duchess  of  Fer.*ara  had  intimated  to  Calvin  that  the 
higher  spirit  of  the  New  Testament  condemned  such  acts,  re- 
corded in  the  old  dispensation,  as  the  execration  of  his  enemies 
by  David.  But  Calvin  answered  that  to  take  such  liberties 
with  Scripture  would  undermine  its  authority.  Henry,  Leben 
Calvin's^  i.  452. 

22 


338     TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

the  communication  of  so  divine  a  message.  The 
Bible  was  as  distinct  in  kind,  and  separated  from  all 
other  books,  as  God  is  distinct  and  separate  from  the 
world. 

So  far  as  the  controversy  with  Rome  was  concerned, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  Protestant  position  was 
a  strong  one.  Transubstantiation,  the  additional  sac- 
raments, iniage-worship,  the  cultus  of  Mary  and  of  the 
saints,  purgatory,  prayers  for  the  dead,  the  papacy  and 
the  hierarchy,  —  for  none  of  these  could  there  be  found 
any  support  in  Scripture.  Admitting,  as  Rome  did, 
the  premise  of  its  opponents  that  the  Bible  was  "  a 
book  of  which  God  was  the  author,"  it  was  continu- 
ally tempted  away  from  its  own  stronghold  in  tradi- 
tion, and  was  worsted  in  the  encounter  whenever  it 
sought  refuge  in  Scripture.  But  when  the  war  with 
Rome  was  over,  the  situation  changed.  A  new  era 
began,  in  which  it  might  have  been  possible  to  take  up 
the  line  of  advance  where  it  had  been  dropped  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  had  it  not  been  necessary  first  to 
get  rid  of  the  false  attitude  which  Protestantism  had 
assumed  under  the  leadership  of  Calvin,  and  which 
long  continued  to  embarrass  the  progress  of  Christian 
thought. 

It  is  customary  to-day,  now  that  Calvinism  is  spoken 
of  as  something  from  which  we  have  been  emancipated, 
to  drop  a  pious  tear  to  its  memory  or  to  eulogize  the 
services  which  it  has  rendered  to  humanity.  But  it 
is  not  quite  so  clear  that  these  eulogies  are  deserved. 
The  service  which  it  rendered  cannot  be  traced  alto- 
gether to  its  theology  as  its  inspiring  source ;  the  evil 
which  it  has  done  is  all  its  own.  Had  not  the  system 
of  Calvin,  like  that  of  the  mediaeval  church,  possessed 
some  features  of  a  common  Christianity  which  still 


REASON  IN  THEOLOGY.  339 

exerted  their  influence,  despite  the  restrictions  with 
which  they  were  bound,  or  had  it  not  as  a  system  been 
engrafted  upon  a  people  whom  God  had  chosen,  with 
whom  lay  the  future  of  the  world,  whose  native  in- 
stincts and  powers  were  still  in  the  freshness  and 
hopefulness  of  youth,  far  from  the  period  when  de- 
cline and  decay  would  assimilate  them  to  the  ex- 
hausted races  of  history,  —  had  it  not  been  for  condi- 
tions like  these,  Calvinism,  like  Mohammedanism, 
might  have  been  an  incubus  too  heavy  to  be  thrown 
off,  and  have  dragged  humanity  down  to  a  lower  plane 
where  liberty  and  progress  would  have  seemed  like 
the  baseless  fabric  of  a  dream.  It  was  not  the  in- 
fluence of  Calvinism  which  has  given  the  modem 
world  its  superiority.  It  is  quite  as  legitimate  to  be- 
lieve, that,  because  so  large  a  part  of  Protestant  Chris- 
tendom refused  to  accept  it,  the  world  is  what  it  is 
to-day. 

The  deistic  movement  did  not  appear  until  after  its 
essential  principle  had  been  reached  by  leading  divines 
in  the  age  of  the  English  Revolution.^  Even  during 
the  period  of  the  commonwealth,  there  were  not  want- 
ing those  like  Chillingworth,  Jeremy  Taylor,  or  Hales, 
who  had  seen  that  the  Bible  was  not  to  be  identified 
with  any  one  definite  system  of  doctrines,  the  accept- 
ance of  which  was  a  necessary  condition  of  salvation. 
The  internal  conflicts  of  Protestant  sects  which  were 
attended  with  so  much  bitterness  and  scurrility,  the 
hatreds  generated  by  theological  differences,  the  grow- 
ing complications  of  the  theological  method,  all  tended 

1  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  who  lived  in  the  first  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  is  sometimes  mentioned  as  the  first  deist. 
But  he  stood  by  himself,  and  his  thought  grew  out  of  other  con- 
ditions than  those  which  originated  the  later  movement. 


840     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

to  impress  men  with  the  conviction  that  peace  and 
security  could  only  be  attained  by  adopting  some  other 
standard  in  theology  than  the  appeal  to  Scripture.  It 
was  impossible  any  longer  to  fall  back  upon  the  au- 
thority of  the  church,  as  Anglican  divines  had  sought 
to  do  in  the  early  part  of  the  century.  Church  author- 
ity had  fallen  into  discredit  with  its  failure  to  over- 
come Puritanism,  as  well  as  by  its  inability  to  restrict 
that  liberty  of  thought  which  was  leading  to  the  re- 
jection of  all  external  authority  in  religion.  If  the 
church  had  not  been  able  to  prevent  the  evil  by  its 
appeal  to  antiquity,  how  could  it  be  expected  to  cure 
it?  There  was  only  one  ground  to  take,  if  religion 
was  to  be  saved  from  the  inroads  of  the  invading  skep- 
ticism, and  that  was  to  assert  the  supremacy  of  the 
reason. 

The  Cambridge  school  of  Platonists,  which  flour- 
ished in  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
whose  disciples  belonged  for  the  most  part  to  the 
Church  of  England,  were  agreed  in  proclaiming  the 
reason  as  having  a  divine  quality.  "  Scripture  faith," 
said  Cud  worth,  "  is  not  a  mere  believing  of  historical 
things  and  upon  artificial  arguments  or  testimonies 
only,  but  a  certain  higher  and  diviner  power  in  the  soul 
that  peculiarly  correspondeth  with  Deity."  ^  Which- 
cote  believed  that  there  was  no  incongruity  between  the 
grace  of  God  and  the  use  of  the  reason.  Rationality 
had  a  divine  foundation.  "  The  spirit  in  man  is  the 
candle  of  the  Lord,  lighted  by  God,  and  lighting  man 
to  God."  To  go  against  reason,  therefore,  was  to  go 
against  God,  for  reason  was  the  very  voice  of  Deity. 
The  Bible  was  not  the  only  or  even  the  first  discovery 
to  man  of  his  duty.  It  only  gathered  and  repeated  and 
^  Preface  to  Intellectual  System  of  the  Universe. 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATONISTS.  341 

reinforced  the  principles  of  truth  scattered  through  all 
of  God's  creation.^  Another  member  of  the  same 
school,  John  Smith,  saw  in  revelation  "  the  free  influx 
of  the  divine  mind  upon  our  minds  and  understand- 
ings." 2  In  his  book  on  the  "  Light  of  Nature,"  Cul- 
verwell,  a  Pui'itan  divine,  asserted  the  supreme  author- 
ity of  the  reason  in  matters  of  religion ;  to  blaspheme 
the  reason  "  is  to  reproach  Heaven  itself,  to  dishonor 
the  God  of  reason,  and  to  question  the  beauty  of  His 
image."  ^  Archbishop  Tillotson,  the  great  preacher 
of  his  age,  whose  popularity  enabled  him,  as  it  were, 
to  set  the  fashion  in  theology,  affirmed  that  every  doc- 
trine before  it  could  be  received  must  be  "  judged  by 
its  accordance  with  those  ideas  of  the  divine  character 
which  are  implanted  in'  man  by  nature."  * 

The  importance  attached  to  the  religion  of  nature  is 
the  most  prominent  characteristic  of  formal  theology 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  In  any  attempt  to  trace 
the  development  of  Christian  thought,  the  profound- 
est  significance  must  be  attributed  to  the  fact  that 
natural  theology  should  have  taken  the  place  of  re- 
vealed religion,  as  the  one  absorbing  subject  of  hu- 
man interest  and  inquiry.  In  a  change  like  this  there 
was  implied  a  revolution  at  the  very  basis  of  Chris- 
tian theology.  The  extent  of  the  change,  which  the 
transition  reveals,  may  be  seen  by  reverting  to  the 
time  when  Thomas  Aquinas  fi^st  made  the  memorable 
distinction  between  natural  and  revealed  religion. 
He  had  made  the  distinction  in  the  interest  of  re- 

^  Whichcote's  Aphorisms,  quoted  in  Tulloch,  Rational  Theology 
in  the  Church  of  England y  vol.  ii.  p.  100. 
2  Discourse  v.  c.  3. 
8  Tulloch,  ii.  p.  416. 
*  Sermons,  vol.  iii.  p.  485. 


342     TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON, 

vealed  religion,  either  for  the  purpose  of  carrying 
out  his  analogy  between  the  kingdoms  of  nature  and 
of  grace,  or  in  order  to  get  rid  of  speculative  dif- 
ficulties which  had  been  raised  by  the  progress  of 
heresy.  But  in  the  thirteenth  century  no  practical  im- 
portance was  assigned  to  the  distinction.  Natural  re- 
ligion had  been  passed  over  as  unworthy  of  the  notice 
of  those  to  whom  a  revealed  theology  had  been  in- 
trusted. In  the  eighteenth  century  the  situation  was 
reversed  :  revealed  religion  was  sinking  into  abeyance 
or  neglect,  while  the  religion  of  nature  commanded  an 
almost  exclusive  attention. 

But  the  transition  was  not  a  sudden  one.  The  prep- 
aration for  it  had  been  going  on  within  the  human 
consciousness,  in  obscure  and  devious  ways,  from  the 
time  when  Latin  theology  had  emphasized  the  separa- 
tion of  humanity  from  God  on  the  one  hand,  or  from 
nature  on  the  other.^  In  the  ready  acceptance  of  the 
miraculous,  which  was  a  characteristic  of  popular  Chris- 
tianity from  an  early  date,  may  be  seen  the  traces  of  a 
surviving  though  latent  belief  in  some  organic  rela- 
tionship between  man  and  his  environment.  The  mar- 
vels and  wonderful  legends  of  the  Middle  Ages  were 
the  substitute  for  science.  The  taste  for  the  miracu- 
lous points  to  a  view  of  nature  which  sees  in  it  the 

^  "  There  is  also  a  consideA,ble  difference  between  the  Greek 
and  Latin  Fathers  in  respect  of  their  estimate  of  nature  and  its 
service  to  theology.  Largely  imbued  with  the  genial  spirit,  as 
well  as  employing  the  language  of  ancient  Greece,  the  Fathers  of 
the  Alexandrian  school  regarded  nature  with  somewhat  of  that 
comprehensive  and  tender  sympathy  which  distinguished  the 
most  nature-loving  people  of  antiquity.  Among  these  nature 
seems  partly  relieved  from  her  ancillary  position,  and  is  awarded 
her  own  merits  independently  of  theology."  —  Owen,  Evenings 
with  the  Skeptics^  ii.  p.  437. 


IMPORTANCE  ATTACHED  TO  NATURE,     343 

reflection  of  the  human  spirit,  as  if  it  contained  a 
response  to  humanity  in  its  deeper  moods  or  in  the 
crises  of  its  career.  In  the  marvelous  effects  which 
were  wrought  by  relics  and  dead  men's  bones,  in  the 
recuperative  power  that  lurked  in  the  touch  of  a  holy 
man,  in  the  inanimate  images  that  winked  or  bowed 
in  response  to  prayers,  —  in  the  belief  in  these  was 
an  unconscious  testimony  to  the  truth  that  the  mate- 
rial world  stands  in  close  relation  to  the  experience 
and  aspirations  of  the  human  spirit.  We  may  read 
the  same  unconscious  testimony  in  Gothic  architecture, 
as  if,  when  the  Teutonic  people  first  gave  expression 
to  the  spiritual  life  that  stirred  within  them,  they  were 
inspired  by  the  ancient  religion  of  nature  with  its  cul- 
tus  developed  in  the  native  forests  of  Germany,  before 
Christianity  had  reached  them.  Now  and  then,  at  rare 
intervals,  we  hear  voices  in  the  Middle  Ages  like  those 
of  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  or  Francis  of  Assisi,  which 
tell  of  an  intimate  relationship  between  man  and  na- 
ture, although  the  bond  that  unites  them  is  still  con- 
cealed. Bernard  speaks  almost  in  a  modern  strain  of 
his  delight  in  nature ;  "  You  will  find  something,"  so 
he  writes,  "  far  greater  in  the  woods  than  you  will  in 
books.  Trees  and  stones  will  teach  you  that  which 
you  will  never  learn  from  masters."  In  the  exquisite 
sites  selected  for  their  monasteries,  as  in  England  by 
the  Cistercian  and  Carthusian  monks,  it  has  been 
thought  may  be  read  the  growing  inclination  for  com- 
munion with  nature,  for  which  the  heart  hungered, 
while  its  study  was  condemned  as  fatal  to  the  well- 
being  of  the  soul. 

After  the  study  of  nature  had  begun,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  Aristotle,  its  progress  was  slow,  owing  to 
the  prejudice  it  encountered  from  the  accepted  prin- 


344     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

ciple  that  nature  was  not  only  subordinate  to  revela- 
tion, but  that  the  law  of  nature  had  been  abrogated  in 
the  kingdom  of  the  supernatural.  But  though  the 
interest  in  religious  questions  was  still  supreme,  al- 
though the  Reformation  diverted  attention  for  a  while 
from  all  other  issues,  the  conviction  was  secretly  cher- 
ished that  the  study  of  nature  was  closely  connected 
with  theology.  Raymund  of  Sabunde  ^  may  be  called 
the  first  clear  herald  of  the  truth  that  God's  revela- 
tion of  Himself  in  the  outer  world  or  in  the  nature  of 
man  is  the  foundation  upon  which  rests  all  certitude 
in  religious  knowledge.  The  spirit  of  the  German 
reformation  tended  in  the  same  direction.^  If  the 
appreciation  of  nature  finds  no  expression  in  the  the- 
ologians who  succeeded  Luther  and  Zwingle,  yet  with 

1  On  Raymund  of  Sabunde  or  Sabieude,  see  Owen,  Evenings 
with  the  Skeptics,  c.  xi. 

"  The  Book  of  Nature  has  always  occupied  a  more  or  less  sub- 
ordinate position  in  all  the  great  religions  of  the  world.  Bud- 
dhism despises  nature  and  tramples  it  under  foot ;  Judaism,  in 
its  later  phases,  has  recognized  it,  but  by  no  means  admits  it  to  a 
footing  of  equality;  Mohammedanism  ignores  it ;  Christianity  has 
for  the  most  part  patronized  it  as  a  corroborative  but  altogether 
subsidiary  proof  of  its  own  truth.  Raymund  of  Sabieude  is 
the  first  Christian  writer  who  not  only  vindicates  the  right  of  the 
Book  of  Nature  to  an  equality  with  Holy  Writ,  but  who  asserts 
the  superiority  in  many  respects  of  the  former  over  the  latter. 
According  to  Raymund,  the  Bible  is  only  true  so  far  as  its  utter- 
ances agree  with  and  are  confirmed  by  the  higher  testimony  of 
nature."     Vol.  ii.  p.  448. 

2  As  compared  with  Luther  and  Zwingle,  Calvin  was  indiffer- 
ent to  nature.  Although  living  for  so  many  years  at  Geneva,  he 
made  no  allusion  in  his  letters,  says  his  biographer,  to  the  won- 
derful beauty  by  which  he  was  surrounded. 

On  the  place  which  nature  holds  in  Milton's  poetry,  cf.  De 
Laprade,  Le  Sentiment  de  la  Nature  chez  les  Modemes,  pp.  240- 
250. 


RISE   OF  LANDSCAPE  PAINTING.         345 

the  German  mystics  of  the  seventeenth  century,  who 
more  truly  represent  them  than  those  who  clung  to 
the  letter  of  their  teaching,  there  is  a  vital  connection 
between  the  spiritual  life  in  man  and  the  external 
world.  Through  their  contact  with  nature  they  had 
been  aided  in  reaching  a  closer  relationship  to  God 
than  they  could  gain  from  the  received  theology. 
Jacob  Bohme  was  accustomed  to  see  all  things  "  en- 
vironed with  a  divine  light ; "  in  the  outward  world 
was  reflected  to  his  vision  an  inner  spiritual  world  ; 
through  the  contemplation  of  nature,  the  mind  of  man 
rose  to  an  insight  into  the  inmost  essence  and  glory 
of  God.^  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  Arndt,  one  of  the 
most  practical  and  spiritual  of  German  mystics,  should 
have  been  suspected  of  tampering  with  alchemy,  or  of 
making  gold  by  the  use  of  the  philosopher's  stone. 
It  is  also  a  circumstance  of  no  slight  importance,  that 
almost  contemporaneous  with  the  mysticism  that  de- 
manded a  closer  alliance  between  nature  and  hu- 
manity should  have  been  the  appearance  of  land- 
scape painting,  as  an  especial  branch  of  art,  in  which 
nature  was  presented  for  the  first  time  for  its  own 
sake,  and  not  as  the  setting  for  some  historical  sub- 
ject or  human  drama.^     The  mystic  and   the  artist 

^  For  the  influence  of  Bohme  upon  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  see  an 
interesting  note  in  Overton,  Life  and  Opinions  of  the  Rev.  William 
Law,  p.  189.  According  to  Law,  "  Sir  Isaac  ploughed  with  Beh- 
men's  heifer." 

^  "Durant  tout  le  moyen  age,  la  figure  humaine  avait  seule 
paru  digne  d'occuper  I'art  humain.  Qu'  etait  ce  que  le  paysage 
dans  les  fresques  du  treizieme  et  du  quatorzieme  siecle  ?  II 
n'existait  pas,  les  peintres  semblaient  ne  pas  avoir  regarde  la  face 
de  la  terre  maudite.  Michel-Ange  lui-meme  meprisait  tout  ce 
qui  n'est  pas  de  1'  homme.  C'est  contre  ce  point  de  vue  de 
r^Eglise  que  s'eleve  Leonard  de  Vinci,  dans  son  Traite  de  la 


346     TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

were    like    sensitive    barometers    foretelling     subtle 
changes  in  the  spiritual  atmosphere. 

By  the  opening  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  results 
achieved  in  the  study  of  nature  had  begun  to  be  ap- 
parent. The  discoveries  of  Galileo,  of  Kepler,  of 
Harvey,  of  Leibnitz,  and  Newton  had  illustrated  the 
principle  that  the  outward  world  is  organized  and 
governed  in  accordaruce  with  uniform  law.  The  in- 
ference was  a  natural  and  inevitable  one,  that,  if 
Deity  revealed  Himself  in  nature.  He  had  also  re- 
vealed Himself  in  the  constitution  of  man,  —  that  in 
a  religion  according  to  nature  must  be  sought  the 
principles  which  should  guide  human  conduct  and 
the  basis  of  certitude  in  the  knowledge  of  God.  In 
religion,  as  in  science,  a  silent  revolution  had  taken 
place,  modifying  the  conception  of  God,  which  lay 
at  the  basis  of  the  Calvinistic  theology.  The  notion 
of  Deity  as  absolute  will,  unconditioned  by  a  law  of 
righteousness  to  which  it  must  conform,  yielded  to 
the  conviction  that  the  divine  will  is  subordinated  to 
a  law  which  constitutes  the  ground  of  the  divine 
nature  ;  or,  in  the  words  of  Bishop  Butler,  "  I  have 
argued  upon  the  principles  of  the  fatalists,  which  I  do 
not  believe,  and  have  omitted  a  thing  of  the  utmost 
importance,  which  I  do  believe,  —  the  moral  fitness 
and  unfitness  of  actions,  prior  to  all  will  whatever, 
which  I  apprehend  as  certainly  to  determine  the  di- 
vine conduct  as  speculative  truth  and  falsehood  nec- 
essarily determine  the  divine  judgment."  ^ 

peinture  ;  relevant  de  sa  ddch^ance  Funivers  visible,  il  replace 
*homme  au  sein  de  toutes  les  formes  de  la  creation." — Quinet, 
Les  Revolutions  d^Italie,  c.  8. 
*  Analogy,  part  ii.  c.  8. 


NATURAL   THEOLOGY.  847 

IV. 

The  religion  of  nature,  as  it  was  generally  under- 
stood in  the  eighteenth  century,  included,  as  its  pri- 
mary tenets,  the  existence  of  God,  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  the  necessity  of  virtue,  and  a  future  state 
of  rewards  and  punishments.  The  gTeat  advantage  of 
the  religion  of  nature,  which  commended  it  to  all  alike, 
whether  deists  or  their  opponents,  was  its  simplicity, 
as  contrasted  with  the  intricacies  of  revealed  theology ; 
its  universality,  as  compared  with  the  divergent  and 
contradictory  teaching  of  hostile  sects ;  its  unalterable- 
ness,  as  built  upon  the  eternal  and  uniform  laws  of 
nature.  It  was  a  religion  peculiarly  fitted  to  meet  the 
skepticism  and  the  decline  of  morality  which  set  in 
with  the  restoration  of  Charles  II.  However  the  de- 
cline in  morality  is  to  be  explained,  whether,  as  was 
generally  thought,  it  was  a  reaction  from  the  enforced 
puritanical  severity  of  the  times  of  the  commonwealth, 
or  whether  it  was  owing  to  the  contagion  of  French 
example,  it  constituted  a  serious  circumstance,  chal- 
lenging the  attention  of  the  church.  To  produce  a 
moral  transformation  now  came  to  be  regarded  as  the 
end  of  religion  —  a  view  which  was  congenial  to  the 
practical  bias  of  the  age. 

As  to  the  tenets  of  revealed  religion  there  was  a 
general  disposition  to  leave  them  in  abeyance.  It  is 
hard  to  resist  the  doubt  that,  even  before  the  seven- 
teenth century  closed,  those  who  best  represented  the 
leading  tendencies  of  the  time  had  felt  that  the  foun- 
dations, on  which  the  traditional  theology  rested,  had 
been  shaken,  —  that  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  jus- 
tify their  retention  on  the  grounds  either  of  reason  or 
of  practical  utility.     But  to  pass  them  quietly  by  was 


348     TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON 

impossible.  The  deists  insisted  on  raising  the  question 
of  the  relation  between  natural  and  revealed  theology. 
Toland,  the  author  of  a  treatise  entitled  "  Christian- 
ity not  Mysterious,"  which  was  published  in  1696, 
may  be  said  to  have  opened  the  deistic  controversy .^ 
A  man  of  impulsive  temperament,  he  was  led  to  speak 
out  what  many  others  were  thinking.  There  was 
scarcely  a  point  in  the  long  controversy  with  the  deists 
which  he  was  not  the  first  to  raise.  His  book  pro- 
duced an  excitement  only  to  be  compared,  in  the  his- 
tory of  religious  thought,  with  Luther's  posting  of  the 
theses.  His  object,  he  said,  was  to  defend  Christian- 
ity, to  which  end  he  had  prayed  that  God  would  vouch- 
safe His  grace.  It  was  his  fundamental  principle  that 
religion  must  be  reasonable  and  intelligible.  Reason 
was  above  the  authority  of  the  fathers  or  of  general 
councils.  As  there  can  be  no  infallible  interpreter 
of  Scripture  in  the  past,  it  is  by  reason  that  the  Bible 
must  be  examined  and  interpreted.  It  was  a  mistake 
to  assert  the  authority  of  Scripture  before  examining 

1  Mr.  Hunt,  in  his  History  of  Religious  Thought^  does  not  class 
Toland  among  the  deists.  Nor  does  the  term  "  deist "  apply  ac- 
curately to  some  other  writers  who  are  generally  so  designated. 
The  word  is  now  used  to  indicate  a  certain  conception  of  the  De- 
ity, such  as  the  Jewish  or  Mohammedan,  which  makes  impossible 
the  idea  of  the  trinity.  Hence  it  has  lost  its  applicability  to  one 
like  Toland,  who  leaned  toward  pantheism.  The  German  dis- 
tinction between  the  Illuminati  and  the  Rationalists,  if  applied 
to  the  movement  in  England,  would  include  Toland  in  the  former 
class.  lUuminism  was  the  application  of  the  principle,  that  the 
moral  consciousness  in  man  is  divinely  inspired,  to  any  depart- 
ment of  human  thought  or  interest,  whether  education  or  society, 
literature  or  art.  Eationalism  was  the  effort  to  reconstruct  re- 
ligion upon  the  same  principle  by  seeking  for  it  in  the  Bible. 
The  English  deists,  properly  so  called,  did  not  labor  with  the 
Bible  as  did  their  German  brethren. 


THE  DEISTIC   CONTROVERSY.  349 

its  contents,  as  it  was  also  the  fault  of  Protestants  tliat 
they  had  taken  for  granted  that  its  teaching  was  to  be 
identified  with  the  tenets  of  the  sects.  He  combated 
the  principle  that  we  should  receive  what  we  do  not 
understand,  or  that  there  were  mysteries  in  Scripture 
which,  while  above  reason,  were  not  contrary  to  reason. 
Reason  was  the  only  ground  of  certainty.  Whatever 
has  been  revealed,  has  been  revealed  through  reason. 
Revelation  is  essentially  an  unveiling  of  that  which 
had  not  been  understood.  A  mystery  in  religion  is 
something  that  has  now  been  made  clear  which  before 
was  not  clear.  In  one  sense,  to  be  sure,  all  things  are 
mysterious, — even  a  blade  of  grass  or  any  object  in 
the  outer  world  whose  essence  we  do  not  know.  But 
we  do  not  speak  of  these  as  mysterious.  So  in  religion, 
while  the  essence  of  God  is  unknown,  His  character 
and  attributes  are  revealed.  No  Christian  doctrine 
can  be  properly  called  a  mystery.  All  things  in  re- 
ligion, as  in  nature,  speak  to  the  reason.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  gospel  contrary  to  reason  or  above  rea- 
son. The  notion  that  things  might  be  above  reason 
and  yet  not  contrary  to  it  was  a  distinction  without  a 
difference  —  a  theological  subterfuge  or  evasion. 

The  natural  inference  from  Toland's  position  would 
have  been  that  God  revealed  Himself  in  and  through 
the  human  reason.  But  the  inference  which  was 
drawn  was  that  he  denied  the  existence  or  the  neces- 
sity of  a  revelation.  On  this  point,  while  agreeing 
in  first  principles,  the  Christian  apologists  divided 
from  those  who  were  to  be  known  as  deists.  Among 
the  opponents  of  deism,  as  it  was  now  understood, 
there  was  a  general  concurrence  in  maintaining  that 
natural  religion  required  for  its  efficiency  to  be  sup- 
plemented by  a  revelation.    Christianity  furnished  ad- 


850     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

ditional  motives  to  the  practice  of  virtue,  as  in  the 
announcement  of  the  doctrine  of  endless  rewards  and 
punishments  which  the  natural  reason  could  not  have 
discovered,  or  in  the  clearer  assertion  of  the  doctrine 
of  immortality  by  the  resurrection  of  Christ  from  the 
dead.  It  was  indeed  hinted  by  some  that  such  tradi- 
tional tenets  as  original  sin,  the  atonement,  and  the 
sacraments  still  held  a  place  in  revelation ;  but  it  was 
done  in  the  way  of  apology,  as  if  there  might  be  points 
of  view  where  they  did  not  appear  as  altogether  irra- 
tional or  useless.  The  stress  of  the  controversy  did  not 
turn  upon  questions  like  these. 

In  reply  to  these  strictures  upon  natural  religion  the 
deists  maintained  that  natural  religion  was  not  only 
clear,  certain,  and  unalterable,  but  that  it  was  suffi- 
cient, without  any  addition  or  confirmation.  Tindal, 
who  published  his  book  called  "Christianity  as  Old 
as  the  Creation,"  in  1730,  represents  this  advanced 
stage  of  the  controversy.  He  summed  up  the  argu- 
ments in  behalf  of  the  sufficiency  of  natural  religion 
by  boldly  declaring  that  Christianity  was  identical 
with  the  religion  of  nature.  In  order  to  think  rightly 
concerning  God,  it  was  necessary  to  hold  that  He 
should,  from  the  first,  have  given  men  an  adequate 
knowledge  of  Himself,  and  of  those  elemental  truths 
by  the  obedience  to  which  they  might  become  accept- 
able to  Him.  As  much  as  this  He  must  have  done, 
and  more  than  this  He  could  not  have  done.  If  the 
law  of  nature  is  perfect,  it  can  receive  no  additions ; 
or  if  it  was  so  imperfect  at  the  beginning  as  to  need 
alterations,  it  argued  a  want  of  wisdom  in  the  divine 
•lawgiver  who  promulgated  it.  "  The  law  of  nature  is 
absolutely  perfect,  it  has  the  highest  internal  excel- 
lence, the  greatest  plainness,  simplicity,  unanimity, 


THE  LINES   OF  ARGUMENT.  351 

universality,  antiquity,  and  eternity.  It  does  not 
depend  upon  the  uncertain  meaning  of  words  and 
phrases  in  dead  languages,  much  less  upon  types, 
metaphors,  allegories,  parables,  or  on  the  skill  or 
honesty  of  weak  or  designing  transcribers  (not  to 
mention  translators)  for  many  ages  together,  but  on 
the  immutable  relation  of  things  always  visible  to  the 
whole  world." 

As  the  controversy  went  on,  two  distinct  lines  of 
procedure  against  deism  were  adopted.  According 
to  the  first  of  these,  objections  began  to  be  made  to 
the  law  of  nature,  that  it  was  not  so  perfect,  so  clear, 
so  universal  as  its  advocates  supposed.  Even  before 
Bishop  Butler  appeared  it  had  been  often  suggested 
that  if  there  were  difficulties  in  revealed  religion 
there  were  also  enigmas  in  the  religion  of  nature. 
It  was  shown  that  nature  had  its  dark  side,  that  it 
was  full  of  mysteries  to  faith,  that  the  evil  in  the 
world,  on  the  whole,  predominated  over  the  good. 
The  pessimistic  r61e  now  assumed  by  the  advocates  of 
revelation  forced  the  deists  to  assert,  as  Leibnitz  had 
already  been  doing,  that  this  was  a  perfect  world  after 
all,  the  best  possible  of  worlds,  that  the  good  more 
than  counterbalanced  the  evil,  that  the  evil  only  ap- 
peared to  be  such,  and  was  in  reality  the  good  in  dis- 
guise, or,  in  the  words  of  Pope :  — 

"Respecting  man,  whatever  wrong  we  call 
May,  must  be  right  as  relative  to  all. 
Discord  is  harmony  not  understood; 
All  partial  evil  universal  good." 

But  in  order  to  maintain  the  universal  good,  or  "  the 
right  relative  to  all,"  it  was  necessary  to  subordinate  * 
the  individual,  or  to  count  out  his  interests  and  expe- 
rience as  non-essential  to  the  weU-being  of  the  whole. 


352     TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

It  is  here  that  we  touch  the  point  where  deism 
entered  upon  its  rapid  decline  as  a  proposed  substi- 
tute for  Christianity.  While  there  was  a  profound 
truth  in  deism  which  the  age  did  not  grasp,  and  yet 
only  by  the  full  acceptance  of  which  could  Christianity 
be  upheld  as  a  divine  revelation  essential  to  man,  there 
was  also  a  fatal  lack  in  its  premises,  the  influence  of 
wliich  began  to  be  disclosed  when  Shaftesbury  and 
Bolingbroke  took  up  the  movement  at  this  point  and 
proceeded  to  carry  it  on  to  its  necessary  conclusion. 
If  divine  Providence  was  revealed  only  in  a  care  for 
the  general  well-being,  and  did  not  extend  to  the  indi- 
vidual ;  if  God  was  manifested  only  in  general  laws, 
whose  operation  might  call  for  the  sacrifice  of  the 
individual,  there  must  be,  according  to  the  current 
reasoning  of  the  time,  an  end  to  personal  or  churchly 
religion.  Prayer,  whether  in  private  or  in  the  con- 
gregation, must  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  vain  and 
empty  performance.  With  the  depreciation  of  the 
value  of  the  individual  soul  in  the  sight  of  God  there 
would  follow  a  weakening  of  the  belief  in  personal 
immortality.  When  the  doctrine  of  immortality  had 
disappeared,  morality  would  inevitably  decline  to  a 
cold,  prudential  estimate  of  duty.  And,  finally,  God 
Himself  would  be  no  longer  necessary.  His  existence 
would  become  an  enigma,  —  a  burden  from  which 
men  would  be  happier  if  they  were  free.  Such  was 
the  process  by  which  the  deism  of  Shaftesbury  was 
resolved  into  the  atheism  of  Hume,  to  whom  the 
whole  subject  was  an  inexplicable  mystery. 

There  was  another  line  of  procedure  against  deism 
besides  this  negative  method  of  finding  defects  in  the 
law  of  nature.  If  Christianity  was  identical  with  nat- 
ural religion,  how  was  the  Bible  to  be  accoimted  for, 


EVIDENCE  FROM  MIRACLES,  353 

with  its  vast  preparation,  as  if  for  some  supernatural 
disclosure  ?  Why  should  evangelists  and  apostles 
have  sealed  their  teaching  with  their  blood,  if  Christ 
had  not  come  upon  some  supernatural  delegation  to 
the  world?  The  miracles  which  had  been  wrought 
by  Christ  and  His  apostles  were  surely  the  evidence 
that  God  had  interposed  in  the  affairs  of  the  world, 
either  in  order  to  communicate  truth,  which  the  human 
reason  could  not  have  discovered,  or  to  confirm  and 
give  additional  sanctions  to  the  law  of  nature. 

Upon  this  point  there  was  complete  accord  among 
the  opponents  of  deism  ;  the  signs  of  a  revelation  were 
the  miraculous  exhibition  of  God's  power  in  external 
nature.  The  deists  would  be  content  only  with  inter- 
nal evidence  drawn  from  the  fitness  of  things  or  the 
testimony  of  the  reason.  They  saw  no  necessity  for 
an  interposition  which,  in  its  very  nature,  was  opposed 
to  a  government  of  the  world  by  law.  It  has  been 
often  said  that  the  philosopher,  John  Locke,  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  deistic  movement.  But  Locke  was 
not  a  deist,  and  it  was  upon  his  views  of  the  human 
understanding  that  the  Christian  apologists  rested  in 
combating  deism.  He  distrusted  the  whole  matter  of 
internal  evidence.  He  rejected  the  theory  of  innate 
ideas,  as  Descartes  had  held  it,  because  it  lacked  clear- 
ness; under  its  cover  the  old  confusion  might  return 
about  the  nature  of  the  mind  from  which  he  was  seek- 
ing an  escape.  In  his  book  on  the  "  Reasonableness 
of  Christianity,"  published  in  1695,  he  maintained 
that  Christianity  might  be  reduced  to  one  single  tenet, 
that  Christ  was  the  Messiah,  whose  advent  was  fore- 
told by  prophets,  the  truth  of  whose  divine  mission  had 
been  attested  by  miracles.  Beyond  that  position  the 
orthodox  theology  of  the  eighteenth  century  did  not  go. 

23 


354     TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON, 

The  assault  upon  this  position  was  opened  by  Col- 
lins in  his  "  Discourse  of  the  Grounds  and  Reasons  of 
the  Christian  Religion."  In  this  work  he  took  up  one 
line  of  the  evidences  for  the  Messiahship  of  Christ  — 
that  drawn  from  the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament. 
To  his  mind  it  was  a  clear  case  that  the  prophecies 
which  were  supposed  to  refer  to  Christ  had  a  relation 
only  to  contemporary  events,  that  none  of  them  had 
been  literally  fulfilled,  that  it  was  only  by  the  use  of 
the  allegorical  method  of  interpretation  that  any  allu- 
sion could  be  found  in  them  to  the  being  whom  the 
Christians  claimed  as  Messiah.  This  attack  upon 
prophecy  was  followed  by  Woolston's  effort  to  demol- 
ish the  evidence  drawn  from  miracles.  His  scurrilous 
and  even  blasphemous  method  in  treating  the  subject 
must  not  be  allowed  to  diminish  the  importance  of  his 
constructive  attempt  to  show  that  the  significance  of 
the  miracles  lay  in  the  moral  or  spiritual  truth  which 
they  were  designed  to  convey  —  an  application,  as  he 
proved,  which  had  been  made  by  the  ancient  fathers. 
Neither  of  these  treatises  possessed  any  scientific  value. 
Collins' s  scholarship  was  defective,  and  it  was  gener- 
ally believed  that  Woolston  was  insane.  A  much  more 
significant  work  in  reference  to  miracles  was  Middle- 
ton's  "  Free  Inquiry  into  the  Miraculous  Powers  which 
are  supposed  to  have  existed  in  the  Christian  Church 
through  several  successive  Ages."  The  inquiry  where 
and  on  what  grounds  the  line  was  to  be  drawn  between 
the  miracles  of  the  early  ages  of  Christianity  and  the 
ecclesiastical  miracles  of  later  ages  raised  another  and 
more  important  question  as  to  the  nature  of  all  histor- 
ical evidence. 

We  are  thus  led  to  the  great  controversy,  which, 
after  the  lapse  of  more  than  a  hundred  years,  still  goes 


AUTHENTICITY  OF  SCRIPTURE.  355 

on  with  unabated  ardor  about  the  genuineness  and 
authenticity  of  the  books  of  Scripture.  The  contribu- 
tions to  this  controversy  in  its  early  stages,  by  English 
writers,  have  only  an  historical  interest.  The  answers 
of  the  apologists  to  the  attacks  of  the  deists  met  the 
demands  of  the  hour,  it  may  be,  but  they  did  not  touch 
the  deeper  principles  involved  in  questions  of  historical 
criticism.  These  lay  beyond  the  vision  of  the  eight- 
eenth century.  As  to  the  deists,  while  they  antici- 
pated at  times  the  modern  lines  of  biblical  criticism, 
they  were  too  much  under  the  influence  of  deep-seated 
prejudices  and  antagonisms  to  read  the  Bible  any 
longer  in  a  right  spirit.  They  had  rejected  the  popular 
theology  as  it  had  been  moulded  under  Calvin's  influ- 
ence, and  they  saw,  or  thought  they  saw,  too  much  in 
the  Scriptures  that  sustained  it.  The  Calvinistic  sys- 
tem, with  a  Jewish  conception  of  Deity  at  its  basis,  had 
made  the  Old  Testament  necessarily  a  favorite  with 
the  Puritan  churches.  It  is  this  which  explains  the 
antipathy  in  every  writer  among  the  deists  for  Juda- 
ism and  its  history.  Nor  could  any  amount  of  histor- 
ical evidence  reconcile  them  to  the  theological  or  dog- 
matic view  of  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament. 
Any  hypothesis  or  alternative,  however  rash  or  ab- 
surd, was  welcome  to  them,  if  by  it  they  could  embar- 
rass their  adversaries.  They  assumed  such  attitudes 
as  would  make  the  study  of  history  impossible ;  and 
indeed  for  history  itself  they  felt  somewhat  the  same 
contempt  as  they  did  for  the  ancient  records  of  re- 
vealed religion.  They  grew  distrustful  of  all  trans- 
mitted written  documents.  They  could  more  easily 
believe  in  the  willful  perversions  of  transcribers  or  the 
mistakes  of  translators,  or  in  forgeries,  of  which,  as  in 
the  case  of  "  Eikon  Basilike,"  they  had  seen  a  recent 


356     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON, 

illustration.  If  a  great  part  of  the  English  people,  in- 
cluding its  scholars  and  clergy,  could  be  thus  imposed 
upon  by  a  bare-faced  forgery  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, why  should  not  similar  attempts  have  been  per- 
petrated with  success  in  the  early  ages,  when  men 
were  even  more  uncritical  and  there  were  fewer  oppor- 
tunities for  detecting  imposition.  It  was  harder  to 
accept  an  obnoxious  theology,  which  their  reason  and 
moral  nature  condemned,  than  it  was  to  admit  that 
evangelists  and  apostles  had  been  falsifiers,  dupes,  or 
impostors.  But  such  gross  charges  against  the  apos- 
tles shocked  the  Christian  common  sense  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  enabled  the  apologists  and  evidence-writers 
to  win  an  easy  victory.  It  was  easy  to  show  that  the 
apostles  could  not  have  been  forgers  or  impostors  or 
dupes,  and  upon  this  line  of  evidence  the  adversaries 
of  the  deists  continued  to  ring  the  changes  until  the 
century  closed.^ 

^  Among  the  more  important  works  in  recent  years  bearing 
upon  the  history  of  deism  may  be  mentioned  :  Lechler,  Ge- 
schichte  des  Englischen  Deismus  ;  Pattison,  Tendencies  of  Religious 
Thought  in  England  from  1688  to  1750;  Hunt,  Religious  Thought 
in  England;  Stephen,  History  of  English  Thought;  Abbey  and 
Overton,  English  Church  in  the  Eighteenth  Century;  Lanfrey, 
UEglise  et  les  Philosophes  au  18"*^  Steele.  Mr.  Stephen  has  not 
been  content  to  enumerate  merely  the  tenets  of  the  dififerent  de- 
istic  writers,  but  he  has  undertaken  to  trace  the  inner  significance 
of  the  movement  as  a  whole.  Many  of  the  distinctions  which  he 
has  made  are  valuable.  But  his  range  of  vision  is  too  short.  He 
belongs  to  that  school  of  theological  critics  who  find  it  confusing 
to  have  meanings  assigned  to  theological  terms  different  from 
those  which  they  carried  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  who  de- 
nounce the  modern  tendency  to  see  in  the  old  language  a  higher 
meaning  as  an  evasive  if  not  dishonest  process.  At  the  expense, 
however,  of  removing  from  such  critics  a  convenient  target,  which 
they  have  acquired  great  skill  in  hitting,  it  must  be  maintained 
that  the  theologians  of  the  Calvinistic  era  had  no  prescriptive 


DEISM  IN  FRANCE  AND   GERMANY.      357 

When  the  deistic  movement  had  exhausted  itself 
in  England,  as  was  the  case  before  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  it  was  taken  up  in  France,  and 
thence  passed  into  Germany.  England  was  the  coun- 
try that  led  Europe  in  this  mighty  effort  to  reconstruct 
religion  and  theology  upon  some  other  basis  than  that 
which  Augustine  or  Calvin  had  assumed.  Voltaire, 
with  his  keen  vision,  watched  the  process  as  it  went 
on  in  England,  and  drew  his  own  conclusion.  Rous- 
seau adopted  the  principles  of  the  religion  of  nature, 
disseminating  them  in  France  by  writings  whose  pop- 
ularity has  never  been  surpassed.  A  new  school  of 
French  philosophy  and  ethics  arose,  combining  the 
teaching  of  Locke  with  that  of  the  later  deists.  In 
France,  more  than  in  England,  there  was  reason  for 
suspecting  lawgivers,  kings,  and  priests  of  creating 
and  upholding  systems  for  their  own  advantage.  T^he 
Latin  church  was  more  obnoxious  to  the  illuminated 
reason  and  conscience  than  the  modified  form  which 
it  had  assumed  in  the  Protestant  sects.  The  French 
Revolution,  in  its  relation  to  theology,  was  only  a 
more  violent  and  disastrous  effort  than  the  English 
Revolution  had  been,  to  get  rid  of  the  notion  of  God 

right  to  fix  forever  the  use  of  terms  in  theology,  and  that  the 
modern  tendency  is  in  reality  older,  as  well  as  possessed  of  a 
higher  authority,  than  that  which  it  aims  to  supersede.  On  the 
history  of  rationalism  in  Germany,  cf.  Hageubach,  History  of 
the  Church  in  the  Eighteenth  and  Nineteenth  Centuries  (translated 
by  Hurst)  ;  Kahnis,  Internal  History  of  German  Protestantism  y 
Hurst,  History  of  Rationalism  ;  Amand  Saintes,  Histoire  Critique 
du  Rationalisme  en  Allemagne ;  Tholuek,  Abriss  einer  Geschichte 
der  Umrvdlzung,  welche  sett  1750,  aufdem  Gehiete  der  Theologie  in 
Deutschland  stattgefunden  hat.  Dr.  Pusey's  Historical  Inquiry  into 
the  cause  of  German  infidelity  is  valuable,  although  retracted  by 
the  author. 


358     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON 

which  made  Him  the  absolute  will,  as  Augustine  or 
Loyola  or  Calvin  had  conceived  Him,  whose  will,  not 
being  grounded  in  a  prior  righteousness  which  the 
reason  of  man  could  discern,  had  become  a  shelter 
for  worse  abuses  and  tyrannies,  whether  ecclesiastical 
or  civil,  than  had  ever  been  recorded  in  human 
history. 

The  ideal  of  human  government,  as  it  had  been 
discerned  under  the  influence  of  natural  theology, 
was  a  government  according  to  constitutional  law  to 
which  the  will  of  princes  must  be  subordinated,  just 
as  God  was  the  constitutional  ruler  of  the  world,  sub- 
jecting His  will  to  the  eternal  law  of  right.  Upon  / 
this  truth  was  founded  the  American  Republic,  whose 
indebtedness  to  the  principles  of  the  English  deists 
may  be  read  in  the  opening  sentences  of  the  "  Declara- 
tipn  of  Independence,"  which  justify  the  revolt  from 
foreign  rule  by  appealing  to  the  "  laws  of  nature  "  and 
the  "  God  of  nature." 

The  movement  which  is  known  as  "  Illuminism  "  in 
Germany  was  essentially  the  English  deism,  however 
modified  by  passing  under  the  influence  of  French 
thought,  or  colored  by  the  enthusiasm  and  subjectivity 
of  the  German  people.^     As  in  England  and  France, 

1  In  this  brief  sketch  of  religious  thought  in  the  eighteenth 
century  I  have  confined  myself  to  England,  because  the  field  is 
a  more  familiar  one,  as  also  because  the  extent  of  the  subject 
makes  it  necessary  to  select  some  one  particular  country  in  which 
to  trace  the  operation  of  principles  that  were  felt  everywhere  in 
Christendom.  It  was  England  also  that  gave  the  impetus  to  the  ' 
revolt  from  the  traditional  theology.  It  is  the  more  important  to 
call  attention  to  this  fact  because  there  has  long  been  a  disposition 
to  saddle  Germany  with  the  responsibility  of  rationalism.  On 
the  direct  influence  of  English  deism  in  Germany,  see  Lechler, 
p.  447. 


ILLUMINISM  AND  RATIONALISM.         359 

it  carried  with  it  the  rejection,  in  root  and  branch,  of 
the  Latin  theology.  It  was  attended  by  much  that 
was  puerile  and  absurd,  by  an  exaggerated  senti- 
mentalism  peculiarily  offensive  to  the  English  mind ; 
but  in  Lessing,  its  chief  representative,  was  a  man  of 
whom  his  country  has  never  seen  reason  to  be  ashamed, 
whose  fame  is  part  of  the  world's  heritage,  who,  coming 
forth  from  the  bosom  of  .a  Lutheran  parsonage,  has 
conferred  upon  theology,  no  less  than  upon  literature, 
the  highest  obligation.  Illuminism,  like  deism,  as  a 
definite  movement,  or  school  of  thought,  had  no  en- 
during existence  ;  but  the  influence  which  it  exerted 
indirectly  in  Germany  was  vast.  Without  it  we 
should  not  have  had  Herder  or  Jacobi  or  Jean  Paul, 
or,  in  a  word,  the  modern  German  literature,  or  the 
modern  school  of  German  philosophy.  But  influences 
of  another  and  higher  kind  had  combined  with  its 
essential  principles  before  Schleiermacher  appeared 
as  the  herald  of  a  new  epoch  in  theology.  On  the 
rationalism  with  which  it  was  associated  (rational- 
ismus  vulgaris)  it  is  unnecessary  to  dwell.  It  was 
simply  an  effort  to  make  the  Bible  conform  to  the 
tenets  of  deism,  as  they  were  generally  accepted,  by 
eliminating  from  Scripture,  or  explaining  away  in 
various  methods  whatever  was  obnoxious  or  contra- 
dictory. Such  an  attempt  must  end  in  Germany,  as 
it  had  done  so^far  as  it  was  attempted  in  England,  in 
utter  and  inglorious  failure.  But  in  its  failure,  with 
all  the  negative  results  attending  it,  it  had  yet  ac- 
complished one  manifest  result  of  the  highest  value, 
—  it  had  shown  that  the  Bible  could  no  long^er  be 
regarded  as  a  miraculous  book,  whose  composition 
and  interpretation  violated  the  laws  of  the  human 
reason.     The  Bible  could  no  longer  be  regarded  as 


360     TRADITIONAL    THEOLOGY  AND  REASON, 

a  storehouse  from  which  to  collate  proof-texts  in  de- 
fense of  foregone  conclusions.  It  had  been  demon- 
strated that  reason  and  the  individuality  of  the  differ- 
ent writers  entered  into  its  composition,  that  it  reflected 
the  local  historical  influences  of  the  various  times  at 
which  its  books  had  been  written.  Discrepancies  had 
been  discovered,  to  reconcile  which  was  too  much  for 
human  ingenuity.  The  eiOfect  of  the  discovery  that 
the  human  element  entered  so  largely  into  what  had 
been  supposed  to  be  a  purely  divine  communication 
was,  at  first,  to  destroy  faith  in  the  authority  of  the 
Bible  as  the  record  of  a  revelation  from  God.  But 
when  this  point  had  been  reached,  the  Christian  mind 
of  Germany  was  ready  to  return  to  what  had  been  one 
of  the  first  principles  of  Greek  theology,  —  that  the 
divine  and  the  human  are  not  foreign  or  alien  to  each 
other  ;  that  if  God  speaks  to  man  it  must  be  through 
the  reason  or  the  consciousness  which  is  in  man ;  that 
human  reason  is  the  reflection  of  a  divine  reason ;  that 
humanity,  by  its  constitution,  participates  in  the  eter- 
nal Wisdom  which  became  incarnate  in  Christ. 

It  is  not  by  turning  again  to  the  voluminous  trea- 
tises written  in  defense  of  Christianity  that  we  shall 
best  learn  the  place  of  deism  in  the  history  of  Chris- 
tian thought.  Such  works,  as  Butler's  "Analogy," 
Lardner's  "  Credibility  of  the  Gospel  History,"  Sher- 
lock's "Trial  of  the  Witnesses,"  Chandler's  "De- 
fense of  Christianity,"  or  Paley's  "  Evidences,"  no 
doubt  served  a  valuable  purpose  in  the  immediate  ex- 
igencies of  the  time.  But  the  circumstance  which 
calls  for  explanation  is  this  —  that  the  leading  writers 
of  the  age,  including  the  apologists,  should  have  be- 
come so  indifferent  to  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  in 


INDIFFERENCE    TO  DOGMA.  361 

their  traditional  form,  as  to  make  it  difficult  to  draw  a 
line  between  them  and  the  deists.  They  were  not 
only  indifferent,  they  seem  to  have  lost  the  clew  to 
dogmatic  Christianity  altogether.  Doctrinal  preach- 
ing almost  ceased  in  the  churches.  Such  doctrines 
as  the  trinity,  incarnation,  and  atonement,  whatever 
might  be  their  meaning  or  value,  it  was  taken  for 
granted  were  above  the  popular  comprehension,  and 
had  no  connection  with  the  practical  duties  of  life.^ 
Such  a  position  was  equivalent  to  their  rejection  or 
denial.  The  apologists  had  found  it  hard  to  say  in 
what  respects  Christianity  supplemented  the  religion 
of  nature.  Even  Bishop  Butler  was  more  of  a  moral- 
ist than  a  theologian.  After  so  many  centuries  of 
Christian  training  it  had  become  a  matter  of  uncer- 
tainty as  to  what  Christianity  really  was. 

The  subtle  cause  which  explains  the  situation  may 
be  discerned,  though  it  may  not  be  easy  to  trace  its 
workings.  The  assertion  that  the  foundation  of  re- 
ligion lies  in  the  moral  consciousness  was  a  silent  chal- 
lenge to  the  Augustinian  doctrine  of  original  sin. 
The  doctrine  to  which  Augustine  had  attached  su- 
preme importance,  which  had  led  him  to  disown  the 
authority  of  the  reason  and  the  freedom  of  the  wiU, 
which  had  reduced  man,  as  it  were,  to  a  mere  animal 
until  he  had  been  regenerated  by  an  outward  grace  im- 
parted in  baptism,  which  had  suggested  the  idea  of 
election,  together  with  the  condemnation  of  the  whole 
heathen  world,  which  had  separated  humanity  from 
God,  which  had  made  revelation  impossible  except  by 
arbitrary  agencies  external  to  reason,  which  had  re- 
duced revelation  itself  to  a  mystery,  and  had  put  men 

*  Abbey  and  Overton,  English  Church  in  the  Eighteenth  Century ^ 
ii.  p.  41. 


362     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

at  the  mercy  of  the  priesthood  and  the  church,  —  this 
doctrine  which  Calvin  had  again  enforced  in  Protest- 
ant theology,  practically  ceased  to  be  believed  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  result  of  its  rejection  is  more 
manifest  than  is  the  application  to  theology  of  the 
principle  which  supplanted  it.  It  is  this  which  ac-r 
counts  for  the  negative  character  of  the  work  of  the 
deists  or  for  their  influence  upon  their  Christian  oppo- 
nents. They  attacked  a  system  of  doctrine  which  was 
not  built  upon  the  reason  or  the  moral  consciousness. 
Neither  the  Augustinian  nor  the  Calvinistic  theology 
professed  to  respect  the  reason,  —  they  simply  defied 
it  as  an  unruly  thing  to  be  brought  into  subjection  to 
the  divine  will.  Calvinism,  with  its  doctrine  of  total 
depravity,  is  at  the  furthest  possible  remove  from  the 
conviction  that  in  the  moral  nature  lies  the  test  of  cer- 
titude in  religious  truth.  Hence  it  was  not  so  much 
that  the  traditional  theology  was  attacked,  as  that  it 
simply  succumbed,  in  the  presence  of  a  truth  which  it 
had  no  power  to  withstand. 

The  principle  that  in  the  moral  consciousness  lies 
the  foundation  of  religious  truth  had  been  clearly  ap- 
prehended and  set  forth  by  the  Cambridge  Platon- 
ists,  by  Archbishop  Tillotson,  and  others  ;  it  had  been 
taken  up  by  the  deists  ;  it  had  been  accepted  by  their 
opponents.  But  as  a  principle  in  theology  it  must 
eventually  conduce  to  higher  results  than  those  which 
attended  it  in  the  last  century.  Its  inevitable  tend- 
ency was  to  bring  back  the  belief,  which  underlay 
the  ancient  Greek  theology,  that  God  and  humanity 
were  connected  by  an  organic  tie,  that  God  indwelt  in 
His  creation,  that  the  revelation  through  the  reason  or 
the  moral  nature  was  the  manifestation  of  present 
Deity.     Of  truths  like  these  we  may  trace  the  un- 


DEISTIC  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD.  363 

conscious  workings  in  the  deistic  controversy,  but  they 
do  not  appear  on  the  surface  of  its  thought.  Indeed, 
they  only  led  to  contradiction  and  confusion,  serving 
rather  to  embarrass  than  to  aid  the  combatants.  The 
old  idea  which  had  descended  through  Latin  Chris- 
tianity to  Calvinism,  that  God  was  at  a  distance  from 
the  world,  could  not  be  easily  overcome.  It  had  be- 
come so  firmly  rooted  in  the  imagination  that  it  must 
long  continue  to  hamper  the  reason  and  the  conscience. 
In  the  deistic  controversy,  so  far  as  only  the  interests 
of  formal  theology  were  involved,  it  was  this  viaw  of 
God  which  was  assumed  by  both  parties  alike.  Men 
reasoned  of  God  as  if  He  were  a  mechanician  in  the 
distant  heavens.  On  the  comparison  of  the  watch 
and  the  watchmaker  the  whole  discussion  hinged. 
The  deists  thought  that  the  world  would  go  of  itseK  as 
the  handiwork  of  an  almighty  and  all-wise  Creator 
without  the  need  of  special  interpositions  in  order  to 
the  better  regulation  of  its  affairs.  To  suppose  the 
necessity  of  miraculous  interference  was  to  imply  that 
the  work  of  the  creation  had  been  imperfectly  ordered 
at  the  first,  —  it  was  to  reflect  upon  the  wisdom  and 
the  power  of  God.  To  the  Christian  apologists,  nur- 
acles  were  the  credentials  of  a  divine  teacher  ;  to  deny 
their  possibility  was  to  give  up  the  Bible  as  the  record 
of  a  revelation.  Approaching  the  subject  from  this 
point  of  view,  although  agreeing  with  the  premises  of 
their  opponent,  they  were  obliged  to  maintain  that 
there  were  cases  which  called  for  an  interposition,  — 
that  a  revelation  could  not  be  given  without  a  miracu- 
lous interference  with  the  laws  of  nature. 

The  effect  of  this  conception  of  Deity  as  a  sort  of 
colossal  man,  who  acts  upon  the  world  from  a  distance 
by  His  power,  is  farther  apparent  in  .those  doctrines 


364     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON, 

which  were  still  nominally  retained,  though  they  had 
ceased  to  be  of  vital  importance  to  the  religious  con- 
sciousness. The  idea  of  such  a  Deity  becoming  incar- 
nate in  Christ  was  an  impossibility  to  the  reason.  The 
doctrine  of  the  trinity  seemed  a  palpable  absurdity, 
whose  origin,  if  it  were  worth  tracing,  would  be  found 
in  the  corruption  of  Christianity  by  heathen  philos- 
ophy. The  tendency  to  Arianism  is  apparent  through 
the  whole  of  the  eighteenth  century.  That  Christ  was 
a  supernatural  being,  who  had  come  to  the  world  as 
a  delegate  from  the  distant  Deity,  had  been  the  only 
view  possible  to  Milton's  imagination ;  it  had  com- 
mended itself  to  Newton ;  it  lurked  under  Locke's 
conception  of  Christ  as  the  Messiah  sent  from  God ; 
it  had  been  openly  avowed  by  Dr.  Clarke ;  nor  could 
Waterland's  defense  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
trinity  avail  to  check  the  tendency  to  acquiesce  quietly 
in  a  belief  like  this,  which  accorded  so  naturally  with 
tho  ruling  idea  in  theology.  With  the  deists,  even 
Arianism  was  unnecessary  as  a  theory  of  the  person  of 
Christ.  As  there  had  been  no  special  message,  there 
was  no  necessity  for  a  supernatural  messenger. 

The  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  in  its  Anselmic  or 
Calvinistic  form,  had  also  ceased  to  be  held  or  preached 
by  those  who  had  come  under  the  peculiar  influence  of 
the  age.  That  God  would  pardon  sin  upon  condition 
of  repentance  was  one  of  the  tenets  of  the  deists.  The 
reason  for  the  decline  of  belief  in  what  was  essentially 
a  Latin  dogma  may  be  more  readily  seen  by  referring 
to  its  origin  in  the  time  of  Anselm.  It  had  then  been 
offered  as  explaining  the  meaning  of  the  incarnation. 
To  Anselm's  mind,  the  inquiry,  why  God  had  become 
man,  had  suggested  an  answer,  which  was  the  echo 
from  the  heart  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived.     But 


RETENTION  OF  ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT.    385 

if  men  were  unconsciously  under  the  influence  of  a 
doubt  whether  God  had  indeed  become  man,  such  a 
theory  of  the  atonement  with  its  complications  to  the 
reason  as  well  as  to  the  moral  nature,  must  pass  into 
abeyance  as  having  no  practical  or  theoretical  signifi- 
cance, even  if  it  were  not  openly  rejected.  So  far  as 
the  apologists,  who  were  the  theologians  of  the  time, 
felt  the  necessity  for  answering  Anselm's  inquiry,  they 
subordinated  the  death  of  Christ  to  His  resurrection, 
by  which  the  natural  intimations  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul  had  been  confirmed. 

In  an  age  when  the  final  appeal  was  taken  to  the 
reason  and  the  moral  consciousness,  it  might  have 
been  expected  that  the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment 
would  have  been  more  obnoxious  than  it  seems  to  have 
been.^  It  was  one  of  the  charges  against  Archbishop 
TiUotson,  that  he  had  made  hell  precarious  by  his  ad- 
mission that  God  had  a  dispensing  power  from  His 
threats  and  penalties.  Tindal,  in  his  "  Christianity  as 
old  as  the  Creation,"  had  maintained  that  the  object 
of  all  punishment  was  disciplinary.  That  a  disposition 
already  existed,  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  to  reject  the  doctrine  may  be  also  inferred 
from  the  treatment  of  the  subject  by  Bishop  Butler.  If 
it  was  not  openly  impugned  to  any  great  extent,  it  was 
owing,  in  part,  to  the  practical  view  which  was  then 
generally  taken,  that  religion  was  preeminently  useful 
as  a  sort  of  police-force  for  keeping  society  in  order. 
Hence  it  was  asserted  by  the  apologists  that  morality 

^  Cf.  on  this  subject,  Abbey  and  Overton,  voV.  1.  pp.  308-318. 
i  If  by  the  majority  the  doctrine  in  point  was  practically  shelved, 
it  was  everywhere  passively  accepted  as  the  only  orthodox  faith, 
and  all  who  ventured  to  question  it  were  at  once  set  down  as  far 
advanced  in  ways  of  deism  or  worse."    p.  312. 


366    TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

needed  stronger  sanctions  and  motives  tlian  natural 
religion  could  discover,  and  that  endless  punisHment 
constituted  one  of  the  distinguishing  features  of  re- 
vealed theology.  It  is  a  profound  remark  of  the  late 
Isaac  Taylor  that  the  hand  of  God  in  the  great  evan- 
gelical awakening  of  the  last  century  is  seen  in  this,  — 
"  that  it  took  place  at  the  very  verge  of  that  period 
when  the  ancient  belief  as  to  future  punishment  was 
still  entire."  ^ 

In  a  history  of  the  Christian  life  or  of  Christian  in- 
stitutions, the  "great  awakening"  under  Wesley  and 
Whitefield  would  assume  the  highest  prominence.  In 
a  history  of  Christian  thought,  its  place  though  impor- 
tant is  only  incidental.  What  its  relation  has  been  to 
the  intellectual  life  of  the  church  an  attempt  will  be 
made  to  determine  in  the  following  lecture.  It  must 
suffice  to  say,  in  concluding  this  sketch  of  the  conflict 
between  the  traditional  theology  and  the  reason,  that 
the  results  of  the  struggle  were  unsatisfactory  and  dis- 
appointing. Theology  suffered  from  the  divorce  be- 
tween the  intellect  and  a  living  Christian  experience. 
Religion,  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was 
practically  identified  with  ethical  culture,  and  so  it  con- 
tinued to  be  throughout  the  century,  except  among  the 
few  who  were  stirred  by  the  appeals  of  Wesley  and 
Whitefield.  The  devotion,  the  zeal,  and  enthusiasm  of 
an  inward  spiritual  life  were  rarely  exhibited,  and  were 
even  discouraged  as  leading  to  mischief.  The  age  was 
still  suffering  from  the  over-zeal,  the  heated  passions, 
the  misguided  enthusiasms,  which  characterized  the 
times  of  the  commonwealth.  When  things  are  sepa- 
rated, which  should  go  together,  the  result  must  be 

^  Wesley  and  Methodism,  p.  164. 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF  DEISM.  367 

disastrous.  Theology  tended  to  assume  a  cold,  intel- 
lectual tone,  as  though  it  were  merely  an  affair  of  the 
head,  while  in  the  revival  under  Wesley  or  in  the 
Evangelical  party  in  the  Church  of  England,  we  sadly 
miss  that  intellectual  element  which  lends  dignity  and 
strength  to  religion,  which  saves  it  from  degenerating 
into  superstition.  Could  the  rationalism  of  the  last 
century  have  been  united  with  the  mysticism  which 
was  struggling  for  recognition,  the  God  of  the  deists 
would  not  have  become  a  mere  impersonation  of  gen- 
eral laws. 

But  such  is  not  the  law  of  human  progress.  Move- 
ments must  first  differentiate  themselves  from  all  that 
would  obscure  their  significance,  in  order  that  the  pe- 
culiar truth  which  each  is  divinely  appointed  to  reveal 
may  be  plainly  and  distinctly  seen.  It  was  not  the  fault 
of  the  deists,  it  was  their  misfortune,  that  while  de- 
stroying the  old  they  could  not  replace  it  with  some- 
thing better.  They  rejected  what  was  called  revealed 
theology  as  not  in  harmony  with  the  reason ;  they  were 
mistaken  in  supposing  that  the  theology  which  they 
scorned  was  the  only  form  which  Christian  thought 
could  assume.  They  made  impossible  the  old  inter- 
pretation of  the  Bible  which  had  perverted  its  mean- 
ing, which  had  destroyed  its  true  significance  as  the 
"  word  of  God,"  by  a  forced  conventional  treatment  of 
its  letter.  They  were  unable  to  show  how  it  should  be 
interpreted,  so  as  to  restore  it  once  more  to  its  true 
supremacy  over  the  free  spirit.  But  whatever  their 
failures,  we  may  be  thankfid  to  them  for  what  they 
did,  in  breaking  down  all  tyrannies  over  the  human 
mind,  whether  of  Scripture  or  of  the  church.  As  we 
review  their  work  we  can  see  how  to  them  is  owing  that 
later  theology  has  been  able  to  build  upon  surer  f oun- 


368     TRADITIONAL   THEOLOGY  AND  REASON. 

dations.  In  emphasizing  the  laws  of  nature,  in  their 
assertion  that  true  religion  was  like  the  laws  of  nature, 
simj^le,  certain,  uniform,  and  unalterable,  grounded  in 
the  constitution  of  man,  they  were  preparing  the  way 
for  a  return  to  the  truth  which  underlay  the  ancient 
Greek  theology,  —  that  the  incarnation  of  the  Son  of 
God  was  also  intimately  connected  with  the  laws  of 
God  as  they  are  revealed  in  outward  nature,  that  His 
manifestation  in  the  flesh  was  part  of  an  immutable, 
eternal  process. 

Yet  while  the  instinct  was  a  true  one,  which  led  the 
deists  to  reject  a  religion  based  upon  miracles,  in  so 
far  as  it  seemed  to  imply  a  God  outside  the  "  reign  of 
law,"  who  was  planning  schemes  and  revising  His  work, 
interposing  in  human  affairs  in  order  to  guard  against 
emergencies,  who  could  only  attest  His  interest  in  man 
by  signs  and  wonders,  while  we  may  admit  the  reason- 
ableness of  their  protest  against  an  anthropomorphism 
which  degraded  the  nature  of  God  —  yet  it  is  also  im- 
portant to  do  justice  to  the  opponents  of  deism,  the 
once  famous  Christian  apologists  whom  we  have  been 
led  too  often  to  decry.  They  too  were  bearing  witness 
in  their  own  way  to  another  truth,  equally  indispen- 
sable with  that  which  the  deists  proclaimed.  They 
stood  for  the  importance  and  necessity  of  the  idea  of 
revelation.  In  the  presence  of  much  that  was  calcu- 
lated to  disturb  or  weaken  their  faith,  they  clung  to 
the  conviction  that  God  had  actually  spoken  to  man  in 
some  direct,  immediate  way  through  Christ,  however 
He  might  also  have  spoken  through  the  law  engraved 
upon  the  heart. 

How  to  unite  these  truths  held  in  separation  and 
hostility  in  the  last  century,^  how  to  bring  revelation 

^  There  were  others  in  the  eighteenth  century  who  gained  a 


PROBLEM   OF  MODERN   THEOLOGY.        369 

within  the  sphere  of  law  and  to  lift  up  law  to  the 
higher  level  of  divine  revelation,  has  been  the  problem 
of  what  we  call  our  modern  theology  —  a  problem, 
however,  whose  solution  had  been  already  grasped  in 
its  essential  principle  by  Clement,  by  Origen,  and  by 
Athanasius,  when  they  proclaimed  a  Deity  indwelling 
in  outward  nature,  but  more  especially  in  humanity, 
and  above  all  in  Christ. 

fuller  view  of  the  relation  of  God  to  the  external  world  than 
the  English  deists.  Such  were  in  Germany,  Lavater  and  Stilling, 
and  more  especially  Oetinger,  to  whom  is  attributed  the  profound 
remark  that  the  end  of  the  ways  of  God  is  corporeity.  Cf. 
Dorner,  Hist.  Prot.  Theol.,  ii.  pp.  234-240.  Oetinger  anticipated 
most  that  was  true  in  the  interesting  visions  of  Swedenborg. 
The  Swedish  seer  endeavored  to  combine  in  his  system  what  he 
rightly  regarded  as  the  two  revelations,  that  in  nature  and  that 
given  in  the  Bible.  But  his  idea  of  the  process  of  revelation,  as 
recorded  in  the  Scriptures,  rose  no  higher  than  the  then  current 
theory  of  verbal  inspiration.  In  order,  however,  even  on  this 
theory,  to  make  the  Bible  serve  his  purpose,  he  was  obliged 
to  omit  from  the  canon  of  Scripture  many  of  the  most  valuable 
books,  while  he  also  exaggerated  the  importance  of  others,  for 
example,  the  Book  of  Revelation,  about  whose  genuineness  and 
authenticity  there  have  always  been  grave  doubts  in  the  church. 
Swedenborg  was  profoundly  read  in  the  study  of  nature,  as  he 
was  also  profoundly  ignorant  of  the  history  of  Christian  theology, 
which  is  the  history  of  the  consciousness  of  man  under  the  guid- 
ance of  divine  revelation.  He,  therefore,  saw  no  other  way  of 
introducing  to  the  world  the  truth,  which,  in  common  with  others, 
had  dawned  upon  his  mind,  than  by  smuggling  it  into  the  Bible 
by  means  of  allegorical  interpretation,  the  key  to  which  he  seems 
to  have  sincerely  believed  had  been  imparted  to  him  in  some  ex- 
ternal supernatural  way.  The  sect  sometimes  called  after  his 
name  still  survives  as  a  monument  to  a  movement  in  the  last 
century  which  was  summarily  interrupted  by  the  great  ecclesias- 
tical reaction  in  our  own  age. 


RENAISSANCE  OF  THEOLOGY  IN  THE 
NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 


Ergo  jam  non  estis  hospites  et  advense,  sed  estis  cives  sanctorum  et 
domestic!  Dei.  —  Eph.  ii.  19. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE, 


A.  D. 

1632-1677.  Benedict  Spinoza. 

1686-1761.   William  Law. 

1700-1760.  Zinzendorf,  Founder  of  the  Moravians. 

1703-1791.   John  Wesley. 

1714-1770.    George  Whitefield. 

1724-1804.   Immanuel  Kant. 

1725-1807.   John  Newton  of  Olney. 

1726.   The  Wesleys  and  Whitefield  at  Oxford. 

1741.   Separation  between  Wesley  and  Whitefield. 

1747-1821.   Thomas  Scott,  the  Commentator. 

1749-1833.    Goethe. 

1753-1821.    Count  Joseph  de  Maistre. 

1759-1827.    William  Blake,  artist  and  poet. 

1759-1836.   Charles  Simeon  of  Cambridge. 

1768-1834.    Schleiermaclier. 

1770-1831.   Hegel. 

1770-1850.    William  Wordsworth. 

1772-1834.    Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge. 

1775-1851.   Turner,  the  landscape  painter. 

1775-1854.    Schelling. 

1789.    Beginning  of  the  French  Revolution. 

1790-1866.    Keble,  author  of  the  "  Christian  Year.'* 

1800-1882.    Dr.  Pusey. 

1805-1872.   F.  D.  Maurice. 

1814-1863.    F.  W.  Faber. 

1833.   Beginning  of  the  Tractarian  Movement. 

1835.    Publication  of  Strauss's  "  Leben  Jesu." 

1845.   Newman  received  into  the  Church  of  Boine* 

1858.   Hansel's  Bampton  Lectures. 

1870.  The  Pope  declared  infallible. 


RENAISSANCE  OF  THEOLOGY  IN  THE 
NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 


I. 

It  is  a  familiar  truth  that  all  great  changes  which 
have  revolutionized  society  have  proceeded  from  the 
people.  The  thoughts  which  may  have  been  antici- 
pated by  philosophers  must  take  shape  as  popular 
sentiments  before  they  become  active  forces  for  the 
amelioration  of  human  interests.  It  was  so  in  the 
beginning  of  Christianity,  when  the  teaching  of  Christ, 
the  loftiest  spiritual  truth  that  has  ever  been  uttered, 
met  with  its  first  response,  not  in  the  upper  classes  of 
society  as  they  are  called,  but  among  the  outcast  and 
the  lowly ;  when  not  many  mighty,  not  many  noble, 
were  called,  but  when  God  chose  the  weak  things  of 
the  world,  and  base  things,  and  even  things  that  were 
not,  as  His  agency  for  overcoming  the  mighty  and  for 
bringing  to  naught  the  things  that  were.  The  prin- 
ciple of  Descartes,  that  all  true  knowledge  must  begin 
with  doubt,  which  when  once  enunciated  could  not  be 
forgotten,  received  its  application  as  a  working  prin- 
ciple in  the  history  of  the  church  during  the  eighteenth 
century,  when  a  general  suspicion  was  everywhere  cur- 
rent that  the  church,  the  priesthood,  the  traditional 
dogmas,  and  even  the  received  Christianity,  were  an 
imposition  of  designing  men,  which  must  be  utterly 


874  RENAISSANCE   OF   THEOLOGY. 

destroyed  if  true  religion  were  to  rise  and  flourish. 
The  principle  of  the  philosopher  Kant,  that  in  the 
consciousness  of  man  lay  the  certification  and  author- 
ity of  all  truth,  may  seem  as  a  metaphysical  principle 
to  be  far  removed  from  the  popular  apprehension. 
And  yet  to  an  idea  like  this,  powerful  enough  to 
become  an  agency  by  which  humanity  was  to  be  moved 
through  the  whole  range  of  its  activities,  the  people 
were  responding  in  ways,  it  may  be,  that  were  vulgar 
or  extravagant,  but  which  yet  attest  how  the  specula- 
tive process  of  the  highest  thought  may  be  corrobo- 
rated by  the  inward  moods  and  necessities  of  the 
soul. 

The  transition  from  the  last  century  to  our  own  age 
may  be  sought  among  the  leaders  of  thought,  such  as 
Lessing  or  Goethe  or  Kant,  or  we  may  seek  it  among 
the  uneducated,  uncritical  followers  of  Wesley  and 
Whitefield  and  Zinzendorf.  Under  the  influence  of 
Spinoza,  Lessing  disowned  the  prevailing  theological 
conception  of  a  God  outside  of  the  world  who  could 
attest  His  existence  only  by  so-called  supernatural 
evidences,  such  as  signs  and  miracles.  Kant  demon- 
strated that  such  a  deity  was  impossible  to  the  rea- 
son, rejecting  any  external  authority  which  upheld  His 
existence,  whether  of  the  church  or  of  the  Bible  ;  only 
in  the  reconstructive  process  which  is  based  upon  the 
inward  convictions  of  the  soul  can  God,  as  Kant  de- 
clared, be  sought  and  found.  Upon  the  same  basis, 
whether  consciously  or  not,  stood  the  ranting  Meth- 
odists and  Evangelicals  in  England,  the  Pietists  or 
Moravians  in  Germany.  Their  religious  faith  and 
life,  their  very  existence,  is  in  striking  contrast  with 
the  temper  of  an  age  which  regarded  God  as  im- 
movably fixed  at  a  distance  from  the  world,  which 


EVANGELICAL  AWAKENING,  375 

inclined  to  deny  a  special  Providence,  or  the  value  or 
significance  of  prayer,  which  regarded  the  church  and 
its  ordinances  as  a  sort  of  superfluous  clothing  with 
which  the  human  spirit  had  been  overlaid  by  an  am- 
bitious priesthood.  What  the  age  was  discarding 
the  disciples  of  Wesley  and  Whitefield  were  accepting 
with  a  new  zeal  and  enthusiasm  which  England  had 
not  seen  for  a  century.  But  they  no  longer  accepted 
the  faith  on  the  old  authority,  however  they  might 
think  or  profess  to  do  so.  It  came  to  them  with  a 
new  authentication  which  they  found  in  the  feelings. 

We  have  become  so  familiar  with  the  idea  of  conver- 
sion as  the  characteristic  of  much  of  the  popular  Chris- 
tianity of  our  own  day,  that  we  realize  with  difficulty 
that  it  was  presented  as  a  new  truth  in  the  last  cen- 
tury, —  a  thing  so  obnoxious  to  the  common  sense  of 
the  age  that  it  seemed  to  defy  all  dignity  and  decency 
in  religion.  It  is  not  easy  to  recall  the  prevailing 
tone  of  thought  which  explains  why  the  doctrine  of 
conversion  was  so  obnoxious.  One  reason  of  its 
offensiveness  lay  in  that  which  constituted  its  peculiar 
charm  to  those  who  had  experienced  it,  —  that  God 
came  into  direct  contact  with  the  soul.  It  was  this 
conviction  which  underlay  the  great  evangelical  awak- 
ening, and  that  marks  the  movement  as  distinct  in 
its  kind  from  every  other  in  history.  It  controverted 
the  deistic  conception  of  God,  not  by  the  reason,  but 
by  the  experience.  It  declared  that  every  man  might 
be  conscious  of  the  action  of  Deity  in  the  recesses  of 
the  spirit.  It  rested  the  reality  of  the  religious  life  in 
sensations  and  emotions  which  were  regarded  as  bear- 
ing witness  to  the  presence  of  God. 

The  doctrine  of  conversion,  as  it  was  preached  by 
Wesley  and  Whitefield,  has  another  interest  in  the 


876  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

history  of  religious  thought  besides  the  change  which 
it  indicates  in  the  conception  of  Deity.  It  passed  out 
of  the  narrow  sphere  in  which  it  was  first  proclaimed 
among  the  Methodist  or  evangelical  societies ;  it  in- 
vaded, to  some  extent,  the  Church  of  England ;  it 
was  accepted  by  Presbyterians,  Congregation alists, 
and  Baptists.  It  gave  homogeneousness  to  the  sects 
"which  date  their  birth  in  the  seventeenth  century,  thus 
binding  together  in  a  common  method  bodies  which 
had  originated  in  antagonism  to  each  other.  It  illus- 
trates how  when  God  is  believed  to  be  in  immediate, 
and,  as  it  were,  tactual  relationship  with  the  soul,  there 
is  no  longer  any  inclination  for  priesthoods  and  sacra- 
mental agencies  which  usurp  His  place.  As  the  idea 
extended  that  God  Himself  works  the  great  change  in 
man  by  which  he  is  turned  from  sin  to  holiness,  the 
last  relics  of  the  system  of  sacramental  grace  vanished 
from  the  popular  mind. 

Another  distinctive  feature  of  the  evangelical  awak- 
ening, whether  in  England,  Germany,  or  America,  was 
its  social  character.  It  did  what  the  church  was  not 
doing,  —  it  bound  men  closely  together  in  groups  or  so- 
cieties, making  them  feel  their  close  relationship  to 
each  other,  by  making  them  realize  their  relationship 
to  God.  Such  was  the  origin  of  the  Methodist  move- 
ment in  its  germ  at  Oxford,  —  a  band  of  men  associ- 
ating themselves  for  a  religious  purpose.  It  was  here 
that  the  evangelical  movement  began  to  correct  the  dis- 
integrating tendencies  of  the  age.  Wherever  it  spread 
it  carried  with  it  the  spirit  of  coterie.  The  charm  of 
the  movement,  in  its  earlier  days  in  the  Church  of 
England,  was  the  bond  which  united  its  adherents  as 
in  some  mystic  brotherhood.  As  in  the  ancient  church, 
the  scorn  and  contempt  which  they  encountered  only 


EVANGELICAL    THEOLOGY.  877 

served  to  deepen  the  ties  which  bound  its  members 
together.  Such  may  be  called  the  first  practical  step 
toward  dispelling  the  illusion  that  society  was  based 
upon  some  selfish  contract,  by  which  a  check  was  put 
upon  those  natural  tendencies  of  men  which  would 
otherwise  tend  to  their  destruction.  The  idea  of  the 
church  was  reappearing  in  its  original  beauty  and  sim- 
plicity, as  a  form  of  association  growing  out  of  the 
very  necessities  of  the  religious  life,  —  a  prophecy  of 
a  regenerated  society  which  has  its  being  in  God. 

It  is  useless  to  look  to  the  evangelical  movement,  in 
any  of  its  forms,  for  any  theologian  who  directly  ad- 
vanced the  progress  of  Christian  thought.  The  study 
of  the  evangelical  theology  is  only  interesting  as 
showing  what  were  the  truths  in  the  formal  theology 
which  appealed  most  strongly  to  the  emotional  moods. 
Methodists  and  Evangelicals  were  children  of  the 
feelings.  In  what  they  accepted  or  rejected  they 
were  guided  by  instinct,  not  by  reason.  As  we  ex- 
amine the  tenets  to  which  they  attached  the  highest 
importance,  we  can  see  that  the  motive  which  imparts 
to  them  their  significance  is  the  bearing  they  have 
upon  the  central  truth  of  conversion.  If  they  took 
up  again  the  discredited  doctrine  of  original  sin,  hold- 
ing to  it  with  surprising  energy  and  tenacity,  it  was 
not  so  much,  with  Augustine  or  Calvin,  as  the  corner- 
stone of  a  system  of  theology,  but  because  it  magni- 
fied, by  contrast,  the  value  of  that  work  of  redemption 
of  which  they  were  conscious  as  the  work  of  God  in 
the  soul,  —  a  transformation  which  no  human  effort 
could  accomplish.  If  the  divinity  of  Christ  became 
to  them  as  an  essential  truth  in  the  presence  of  an 
Arianizing  tendency  which  hung  like  an  atmosphere 
over  the  age,  lowering  the  tone  of  Christian  piety,  it 


878  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY, 

was  because  they  felt  it  to  be  indispensable  to  tbeir 
religious  life,  not  because  they  had  reasoned  out  its 
necessity  or  saw  its  speculative  value  in  a  system  of 
theology.  They  returned  to  the  Bible  with  an  un- 
qualified devotion,  because  they  found  in  its  teach- 
ing that  which  corresponded  to  their  experience  or 
met  the  deepest  wants  of  the  soul.  They  did  not  stop 
to  reason  about  prayer,  or  how  a  special  Providence 
could  be  reconciled  with  general  laws ;  they  prayed 
because  they  found  in  prayer  the  vital  principle  of 
religion.  In  a  word,  it  was  a  theology  reposing  upon 
the  feelings  as  the  only  sure  foundation  when  every 
other  support  had  given  way. 

The  evangelical  movement  has  been  thus  briefly 
referred  to  because  it  constitutes  the  transition  to 
Schleiermacher,  the  representative  theologian  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Before  dismissing  it,  attention 
should  be  called  to  the  principle  which  divided  the 
Evangelicals  into  two  distinct  schools,  and  which  has 
also  made  itself  felt  in  the  later  history  of  theology. 
The  separation  between  Wesley  and  Whitefield  in- 
volved a  point  of  primary  importance.  Wesley  re- 
j  jected  the  Augustinian  or  Calvinistic  idea,  that  the 
V  will  had  lost  its  freedom  through  Adam's  fall,  —  a 
tenet  which  Whitefield  retained.  While  with  both 
conversion  was  a  change  sudden,  revolutionary,  and 
complete,  with  the  one  it  was  regarded  as  a  process 
for  which,  man  might  prepare  the  way,  with  the  other 
it  was  necessary  to  wait  until  God  chose  to  act.  But 
while  the  assertion  of  Wesley,  that  the  will  was  free, 
might  seem  to  be  an  advance  in  theology  —  a  rejec- 
tion of  the  Augustinian  dogma  of  original  sin,  yet  it 
does  not  appear  that  Wesley  grounded  his  belief  in  a 
truer  intellectual  conception  of  the  nature  of  God  or 


WESLEY  AND   WILLIAM 

of  His  relation  to  man.  It  is  a 
Wesley,  as  a  religious  reformer,  that 
to  us  in  his  earlier  life  as  undertaking  anew" 
after  God.  How  to  find  God,  and  how  to  adju^-^Qjie'^ 
relationship  to  Him,  under  the  consciousness  of  sin, 
are  the  uppermost  questions  in  his  mind.  The  one 
man  of  the  age  who,  above  all  others,  may  be  said  to 
have  lived  and  to  have  had  his  being  consciously  in 
God,  was  William  Law,  a  non-juring  clergyman  of 
the  Church  of  England.  To  him  Wesley  turned  for 
assistance,  but  came  away  disappointed.  When,  at 
last,  he  had  reached  a  principle  which  seemed  to  solve 
his  difficulty,  he  reproached  Law  with  not  being  a 
Christian,  nor  understanding  the  true  meaning  of  the 
work  of  Christ.  Wesley  had  accepted  as  the  fun- 
damental principle  in  religion  that  which  Law  intel- 
ligently and  determinately  rejected.  He  had  found 
peace  with  God  through  belief  in  a  doctrine  of  the 
atonement  such  as  Anselm  or  as  Calvin  had  taught  it. 
The  doctrine  came  to  him  through  the  Moravians,  and 
while  essentially  the  old  Latin  doctrine  in  its  spirit,  it 
had  assumed  a  grossness  of  form  and  statement  which 
makes  Anselm's  view  seem  lofty  by  comparison.  The 
effect  of  this  belief  in  Wesley's  theology  was  to  give 
an  almost  exclusive  prominence  to  the  person  and 
work  of  Christ.  As  with  the  Moravians,  Christ  takes 
the  supreme  place  in  Christian  experience,  while, 
if  one  may  so  speak,  God  is  relegated  to  the  back- 
ground, as  if  a  being  from  whom  Christ  had  come  to 
deliver  us.  Thus  an  element  had  entered  again  into 
the  popular  theology  which  affiliated  it  with  the  pre- 
dominant characteristic  of  mediaeval  religion,  and 
which  also  explains  the  ease  with  which  the  transition 
has  been  so  often  made  from  the  Protestant  faith  to 
the  acceptance  of  Romanism. 


380  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

With  the  evangelical  school  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, while  a  similar  importance  was  attached  to  the 
doctrine  of  atonement,  yet  the  Calvinistic  influence 
which  it  perpetuated  prevented  it  from  seeking  to 
escape  from  God.  There  was,  on  the  contrary,  a 
tendency  to  degrade  the  idea  of  Deity  by  too  familiar 
association  in  the  experience  of  conversion.  The  ele- 
ment of  awe  and  of  mystery,  which  enters  so  vitally 
into  a  true  relationship  with  Deity,  was  in  danger  of 
disappearing,  unless  some  corrective  could  be  found 
which  evangelical  theology  was  unable  to  supply. 
The  defect  of  the  evangelical  movement,  as  a  wholSj 
and  in  all  its  phases,  was  the  narrowness  of  its  range. 
It  limited  too  much  the  sphere  of  the  feelings  in 
religion.  It  had  no  interest  in  art  or  science,  in  phi- 
losophy or  in  intellectual  culture.  It  had  a  tendency 
to  disclaim  all  human  learning  as  corrupting  to  the  sim- 
plicity of  faith.  It  stood  so  near  the  old  deism,  from 
which  it  was  reacting,  that  it  failed  to  catch  the  pro- 
found truth  which  it  contained,  —  that  religion  was 
included  in  the  realm  of  universal  law.  There  was 
something  irregular,  if  not  spasmodic  or  fitful,  in  the 
ideas  of  revival  and  conversion.  There  still  lurked 
beneath  them  the  principle  of  election,  even  though 
Wesley  intended  to  reject  it.  The  conception  of  a 
redeemed  humanity,  whose  solidarity  was  in  Christ, 
was  still  a  truth  waiting  for  recognition.  Without 
the  evangelical  awakening,  the  restoration  of  a  higher 
theology  would  not  have  been  possible.  Its  great 
service  was  in  illustrating  the  profound  reality  of  the 
religious  life.  Its  defect  was  its  want  of  an  intel- 
lectual tone  and  a  more  ethical  aim.  For  the  lack 
of  these  it  failed  to  retain  its  grasp  upon  the  ad- 
vancing life  of  Christendom.      Its  methods   became 


SCHLEIERMACHER.  881 

distasteful  to  a  more  enlightened  sentiment.  It  was 
unable  to  meet  the  skepticism  of  an  age  which  had 
seen  the  exposure  of  the  unreasonableness  of  the 
formal  theology  of  Protestantism  when  traced  to  its 
foundation. 

II. 

The  spirit  of  the  evangelical  movement,  as  it  was 
represented  in  Germany  by  the  Moravians,  formed  an 
important  element  in  the  training  of  Schleiermacher 
for  his  great  work  as  the  regenerator  of  theology.  In 
this  respect,  with  his  ardent  devotion  to  the  person  of 
Christ  gained  in  the  schools  of  Moravian  piety,  he 
stands  in  striking  contrast  with  the  religious  temper  of 
his  age.  It  was  in  the  closing  year  of  the  eighteenth  ^ 
century  that  he  stood  up  before  the  German  people 
to  advocate  personal  religion  as  a  relationship  to  God 
grounded  in  the  deepest  instincts  of  human  nature. 
Religion  is  not  a  system  of  dogmas  addressed  to  the 
intellect,  it  is  not  a  ritual,  neither  is  it  a  collection  of 
precepts  enjoined  upon  the  will.  It  is  the  essential 
primitive  action  of  the  human  soul,  a  feeling  or  sen- 
timent innate  in  man  which  unites  him  with  God  and 
with  the  universal  order  of  things,  —  it  springs  from 
the  constitutional  endowment  of  humanity  in  God's 
own  image.  Keligion  may  be  developed  by  reflection 
and  by  a  process  of  external  training ;  it  may  act  upon 
all  other  departments  of  human  interest,  and  even 
come  to  include  in  its  sphere  the  intellectual  or  moral 
sciences ;  but  primarily  it  is  not  these,  —  it  resolves  it- 
self into  a  simple  feeling  of  dependence  upon  God. 

In  thus  basing  religion  upon  the  feelings,  which 
possess,  as  it  were,  a  certain  cognitive  power,  whose 
perceptions  it  may  be  the  work  of  the  intellect  to  in- 


\ 


382  RENAISSANCE  OF  THEOLOGY. 

terpret,  Schleiermacher  was  returning  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  ancient  Greek  theology,  before  the  true 
relationship  of  man  to  God  had  been  misrepresented 
by  the  Augustinian  dogma  of  original  sin.  His  idea 
of  the  feeling  as  the  basis  of  religion  implied,  how- 
ever, much  more  than  the  superficial  life  of  the  emo- 
tions, or  that  sensuous  mood  into  which  Moravian  or 
evangelical  piety  had  a  tendency  to  degenerate.  It 
included  the  deeper  instincts  and  yearnings  of  the 
soul,  as  they  were  seen  not  merely  in  the  individual 
man  or  the  local  transitory  phases  of  some  particular 
age,  but  as  they  were  illustrated  in  the  experience  of 
humanity  through  all  its  history.  At  a  time  when  the 
old  intellectual  conceptions  of  God  and  of  the  world 
had  lost  their  meaning,  when  as  yet  they  had  not  been 
replaced  by  larger  conceptions  which  would  meet  the 
demands  of  the  growing  reason,  what  other  mode  of 
procedure  remained  than  to  revert  to  the  original  en- 
dowment of  human  nature  as  it  might  be  read  in  his- 
tory, or  in  the  individual  consciousness,  —  to  those  in- 
timations within  the  soul  however  dim  or  shadowy,  — 

**  Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day, 
Are  yet  the  master  light  of  all  our  seeing." 

In  his  idea  that  religion  is  based  upon  the  feeling 
and  consists  in  the  consciousness  of  a  personal  relation 
to  Christ,  Schleiermacher  was  reflecting  the  immediate 
influence  of  his  Moravian  training.  But  other  ele- 
ments than  the  somewhat  narrow  pietism  of  the  evan- 
gelical movement  had  entered  into  the  composition  of 
his  theology.  There  converged  in  his  mind,  as  if  it  had 
been  a  focus  for  the  preceding  ages,  the  scattered  rays 
of  truth,  which  had  been  illuminating  individuals  here 
and  there  in  the  long  course  of  human  progress.    Into 


ANTECEDENTS   OF  HIS   THEOLOGY,  383 

his  thought  concerning  God  there  had  entered  the  in- 
fluence of  Spinoza,  of  whom  he  had  remarked  in  his 
famous  "  Discourses  on  Religion :  "  — 

"  The  sublime  spirit  of  the  world  penetrated  him  ;  the  in- 
finite was  his  beginning  and  his  end  ;  the  universal  his  only 
and  eternal  love  ;  living  in  holy  innocence  and  profound 
humility,  he  contemplated  himself  in  the  eternal  world,  and 
saw  that  he  too  was  for  the  world  a  mirror  worthy  of  love  : 
he  was  fuU  of  religion  and  full  of  the  holy  spirit." 

In  Schleiermacher  we  have  also,  for  the  first  time 
since  the  days  of  Greek  theology,  a  representative  the- 
ologian of  the  highest  intellectual  capacity,  who  had 
drunk  deeply  at  the  springs  of  Greek  philosophy  and 
culture.  The  habit  of  devotion  to  the  classics  among 
the  students  of  the  last  century  brought  forth  a  pos- 
itive result  in  the  deeper  insight  into  the  workings  of 
the  Hellenic  spirit.  Upon  Schleiermacher  the  study 
of  Plato  had  produced  its  inevitable  effect,  releasing 
him  from  intellectual  servitude,  enlarging  his  mental 
horizon,  stimulating  the  critical  faculty,  imparting  the 
desire  for  the  truth  at  any  hazards,  the  love  for  all 
that  was  highest  and  best,  the  conviction  that  the 
world  when  rightly  viewed  was  resplendent  with  the 
glory  of  God.  He  remained  in  full  possession  of  the 
truth  contained  in  German  illuminism,  after  what  was 
weak  or  foolish  in  its  tentative  applications  had  been 
eliminated.  He  had  followed  the  new  philosophy  of 
Schelling,  who,  in  his  search  after  God  in  the  his- 
tory of  nature  and  of  humanity,  had  traced  the  pro- 
found analogy  between  the  laws  of  matter  and  the  laws 
of  thought ;  who  no  longer  regarded  nature  as  under 
the  sway  of  a  blind  fatality,  but  as  penetrated  with  a 
divine  intelligence,  slumbering  unconsciously  till  it 
came  to  the  knowledge  of  itself  in  man ;  who  saw  that 


384  RENAISSANCE   OF   THEOLOGY. 

humanity,  although  free,  was  still  under  the  dominion 
of  law ;  that  the  spiritual  life  which  had  been  engrafted 
upon  an  organic  basis  in  naturie  reproduced  its  move- 
ment in  completer  form  and  upon  a  vaster  scale.  He 
rejoiced  in  the  German  awakening,  of  which  Lessing 
had  been  a  pioneer,  whose  results  were  seen  in  the 
rejection  of  foreign  influence,  in  the  rise  of  a  distinc- 
tively German  literature  in  which  all  that  was  most 
truly  characteristic  of  the  German  people  found  an  un- 
trammeled  expression.  He  had  drawn  from  France,  in 
the  earlier  years  of  the  French  Revolution,  an  enthu- 
siasm for  the  idea  of  humanity,  —  an  idea  which,  be- 
fore Europe  had  been  startled  by  the  wild  excesses 
that  marked  the  struggle  for  its  realization,  had  caused 
a  thrill  of  wonderful  expectation  as  of  some  great  and 
unexampled  good  that  was  coming  to  man.  He  was 
in  the  first  flush  of  his  manhood  at  a  time  when,  in 
the  words  of  the  poet  who  has  caught  so  exquisitely 
the  mood  of  the  hour,  — 

*'  Bliss  was  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive, 
But  to  be  young  was  very  heaven." 

Influences  like  these  were  unknown  to  Latin  the- 
ology as  well  as  repugnant  to  its  spirit.  The  same 
is  true,  also,  of  Protestant  theology  so  far  as  it  had 
inherited  from  Calvin  a  similar  tendency  and  aim. 
Their  introduction  as  ruling  principles  in  modern  re- 
ligious thought  marks  a  quiet  revolution  which  has 
modified  the  traditional  theology  at  every  point,  —  a 
revolution,  compared  with  which  that  of  the  sixteenth 
century  was  insignificant.  As  we  review  the  leading  ^ 
features  of  the  theology,  which  has  been  gradually  ex- 
tending its  reception  in  the  church,  from  the  time  of 
Schleiermacher,  it  appears  in  every  essential  aspect  as 


RETURN  TO   GREEK   THEOLOGY,  385 

a  reproduction  of  what  Greek  theologians  had  taught, 
when  the  influence  of  Christ  was  yet  fresh  in  the  world, 
when  the  Christian  intellect  was  quickened  as  if  by  a 
supernatural  impulse,  when,  as  yet,  the  teaching  of 
Christ  had  not  been  modified  or  economized,  reduced 
or  disowned  by  the  interests  of  ecclesiastics  claiming 
authority  to  teach  and  govern  the  world  in  His  name. 

To  trace  this  revolution  as  it  has  been  silently 
wrought  in  so  many  noble  minds,  —  to  follow  the 
struggles  by  which  one  after  another  of  the  leaders  of 
the  modern  church  have  attained  a  higher  and  more 
comprehensive  conception  of  the  religion  of  Christ,  — 
interesting  as  such  a  task  would  be,  it  is  impossible  to 
undertake  it  here.  We  must  be  content  to  note  the 
process  in  a  single  mind.  For  this  purpose  Schleier- 
macher  may  be  taken  as  a  representative  man,  who 
being  dead  yet  speaketh ;  whose  insight  was  so  true 
and  so  far-reaching,  that  as  a  religious  thinker  he  is 
still  in  advance  of  many  who  feel  and  acknowledge  his 
influence. 

While  there  were  deficiencies  in  his  conception  of 
God,  to  which  allusion  will  be  made  hereafter,  the 
statement  needs  no  qualification  that  the  theology  of 
Schleiermacher  is  affected  throughout  by  the  convic- 
tion that  God  indwells  in  the  world.  His  belief  in 
a  divine  presence  in  the  world  and  in  man  was  deep 
and  vivid.  Against  the  cold  idea  of  deism,  he  asserted 
a  living  spiritual  presence,  a  God  who  is  with  us  and 
in  us,  who  is  allied  to  humanity  by  an  organic  rela- 
tionship. The  result  of  this  conviction  of  the  im- 
manence of  God  implied  the  restoration  to  a  supreme 
place  in  his  theology  of  the  spiritual  or  essential 
Christ,  who  is  above  the  conditions  of  time  or  space. 
A^  in  Greek  theology,  or  in  every  school  of  mystical 

25 


386  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

thought,  whether  mediaeval  or  Protestant,  it  is  no 
longer  the  Christ  after  the  flesh,  but  after  the  spirit, 
who  occupies  the  central  throne  in  Christian  thought 
and  experience.  Christ  was  the  incarnation  of  the 
divine  consciousness  as  it  exists  in  its  fullness  in  God. 
To  think  of  Him  exclusively  as  one  who  had  come  upon 
a  mission  to  the  world  from  the  distances  of  space,  and 
then  departed,  was  to  miss  the  idea  of  One  who  stands 
by  an  eternal  law  of  God-head  in  intimate  and  contin- 
uous relationship  with  the  human  spirit.  That  He 
was  now  set  down  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father  did 
not  mean  that.  His  work  being  accomplished.  He  had 
retired  from  the  world,  passively  awaiting  the  end  of 
the  dispensation.  To  be  seated  at  the  right  hand  of 
immanent  Deity,  is  to  be  in  the  thick  of  the  conflict 
which  humanity  is  waging  with  sin  and  evil,  it  is  to 
be  forever  here  in  our  midst,  the  inspiration  of  all 
strength  and  courage,  the  source  of  hope  and  faith, 
the  pledge  of  ultimate  victory.  It  is  through  contact 
with  the  personal  Christ  that  sin  is  overcome ;  it  is  by 
entering  with  Him  and  through  Him  into  the  divine 
life,  that  man  attains  union  and  reconciliation  with 
God. 

Schleiermacher  contradicted  the  inmost  principle  of 
the  mediaeval  or  Calvinistic  theologies,  when  he  de- 
clared that  in  the  earthly  life  of  Christ  there  was  to 
be  seen  the  glorious  exhibition  of  manifested  Deity. 
Calvin  had  regarded  the  life  of  Christ  in  this  world  as 
the  humiliation  of  the  Son  of  God,  in  which  the  divine 
glory  was  concealed  as  it  were  behind  a  veil,  while  His 
glorification,  when  the  universe  should  behold  Him  in 
the  fullness  of  divine  exaltation,  was  reserved  to  some 
period  in  the  future  when  this  world  should  have  been 
swept  away.     Because  Schleiermacher  had  also  risen 


NATURE  OF  THE  INCARNATION.        387 

above  the  dualism  of  Latin  theology  which  made  the 
(  human  and  the  divine  alien  to  each  other,  the  incarna- 
tion appeared  once  more  as  it  had  in  Greek  theology, 
—  the  actual  manifestation  of  God  in  the  human,  the 
entrance  of  the  divine  into  humanity  itself,  so  that 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  became  the  revelation  of  God  in 
His  absolute  glory.  From  the  time  when  Augustine 
wrote  his  "City  of  God,"  the  sentiment  prevailed  in 
Christendom  that  the  divine  kingdom,  for  whose  ad- 
vent we  pray,  was  to  come  in  some  other  world  in  the 
remote  future.  In  this  world  the  Christian  must 
always  remain  a  pilgrim  and  stranger,  journeying 
through  darkness  and  danger  to  the  celestial  hearth- 
stone. The  veil  has  been  upon  the  face  of  man  and 
not  upon  the  face  of  Christ.  When  Schleiermacher 
discerned,  as  by  a  revelation,  in  the  humble  existence 
of  the  prophet  of  Nazareth  the  unveiled  glory  of  the 
infinite  God,  the  thought  of  ages  was  reversed.  This 
world  was  seen  as  if  lit  up  with  the  light  of  God : 
man  was  introduced  even  here  to  the  fellowship  of 
saints  and  angels,  to  the  intimate  converse  of  the  only- 
begotten  Son  of  God  with  the  Father.  Or,  in  the 
words  of  an  apostle :  "  Now  therefore  ye  are  no  more 
strangers  and  pilgrims,  but  fellow-citizens  with  the 
saints  and  of  the  household  of  God." 

Another  principle  which  Schleiermacher  regarded 
in  its  larger  relationships  and  restated  from  a  higher 
point  of  view  was  the  doctrine  of  election.  The 
Latin  church  had  called  itself  Catholic,  but  its  catho- 
licity had  been  limited  by  the  epithet  Roman.  In  re- 
ality it  had  not  aspired  Jio  do  more  than  to  build  up  a 
Latin  family :  it  had  been  committed  to  the  principle, 
from  the  hour  of  its  birth,  that  part  of  the  human  race 
and  not  the  whole  was  destined  for  salvation.    Calvin- 


888  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

ism  had  only  emphasized  in  a  different  way  that  which 
constitutes  the  motive  of  ecclesiasticism  in  all  its 
forms.  So  far  as  the  principle  is  concerned  it  makes 
little  difference  whether  it  is  an  election  by  baptism 
through  the  church,  or  an  election  of  the  individual  by 
special  decree.  The  genesis  of  this  belief  in  election 
has  been  already  traced  in  the  history  of  Latin  the- 
ology to  the  negation  of  the  truths  which  constitute 
the  essential  features  of  Christianity.  As  those  truths 
began  to  reappear  in  their  pristine  strength  and  beauty 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  belief  in  election  tended 
to  grow  weak  and  to  yield  to  some  higher  conviction. 
To  the  ideas  that  religion  is  included  in  the  sphere  of 
law,  that  God  is  the  constitutional  ruler  of  the  world, 
responsible  to  the  infinite  righteousness  which  is  the 
charter  of  the  divine  activity,  that  humanity  has  a 
common  life,  and  is  endowed  with  native  rights  which 
every  human  government  must  respect,  that  God  must 
rule  the  world  for  the  good  of  all,  and  not  in  the  in- 
terest of  a  few, — to  these  truths,  Schleiermacher  added 
the  conviction  that  humanity  as  a  whole  had  been  re- 
deemed in  Christ,  that  grace,  no  less  than  law,  was 
the  dispensation  under  which  all  men  everywhere  were 
living.  The  idea  of  election  in  some  form  will  always 
continue  to  prevail,  as  it  always  has  done.  To  Greeks 
and  to  Romans,  no  less  than  to  the  Jews,  election  was 
the  principle  by  which  they  lived.  But  Schleiermacher 
gave  a  different  answer  to  the  question.  What  end  was 
the  election  intended  to  serve  ?  He  distinguished  be- 
tween the  predestination  of  all  men  to  salvation  as  the 
end  of  their  being,  and  the  election  which  in  this  world 
and  within  the  limits  of  time  is  able  to  save  only  a  few 
in  order  that  all  may  eventually  attain  to  the  same  re- 
sult.    Election  may  still  seem  an  arbitrary  principlei. 


ELECTION  AND  PROBATION.  389 

but  it  is  necessary  in  the  ordering  of  this  present 
world.  It  is  a  provisional  arrangement  by  which  the 
few  are  called  for  the  ultimate  benefit  of  the  many, 
not  merely  to  secure  their  individual  salvation.  From 
such  a  point  of  view,  the  belief  in  election  with  its 
wonderful  tenacity  points  to  a  divine  inspiration  as  its 
source,  which  has  led  nations  and  institutions  and  in- 
dividuals to  make  their  calling  and  election  sure. 

Not  only  the  principle  of  election,  but  the  doctrine 
of  life  as  a  probation,  was  transformed  into  a  higher 
and  more  comprehensive  truth  by  the  idea,  of  which 
Schleiermacher  saw  the  full  bearings,  that  human  life 
was  essentially  an  educational  process,  for  which  no 
limits  could  be  assigned  through  conditions  of  time  or 
place  here  or  hereafter.  To  Lessing  belongs  the  cred- 
it, in  his  treatise  on  "  The  Education  of  the  Human  -^ 
Kace,"  of  having  first  restored  a  truth,  of  which  it  may 
be  said  that  it  solves  more  problems  in  theology,  as 
well  as  in  practical  life,  than  any  other  view  which  has 
been  suggested.  It  is  to  history,  and  to  religion  more 
especially,  what  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  of  which  it  X 
is  the  anticipation  in  its  highest  form,  has  been  to 
science.  That  it  should  have  lain  dormant  from  the 
time  of  Clement  of  Alexandria,  by  whom  it  received 
so  full  an  elaboration  as  a  prominent  truth  in  theology, 
is  a  suggestive  commentary  on  the  intervening  ages  of 
history.  The  belief  that  humanity  as  a  whole,  as  well 
as  each  individual  man,  are  in  this  world  to  begin  an 
education  under  the  tutelage  of  a  divine  instructor, 
lends  sacredness  to  human  life  under  all  its  manifes- 
tations, in  every  period  of  its  development.  Election 
is  therefore  an  incident  of  a  universal  process.  Pro- 
bation also  is  a  necessary  accompaniment  of  a  moral 
history,  but  its  results  at  any  one  stage  of  progress 


390  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

cannot  be  measured  except  by  the  eye  of  Him  who 
sees  things  in  the  perspective  of  infinity,  who  as  the 
Teacher  of  humanity  has  at  His  command  the  resources 
of  omnipotent  and  omniscient  love.  The  idea  of  the 
divine  education  of  the  race  is  also,  as  it  were,  the 
complement  to  the  truth  which  Kant  affirmed  so 
strongly,  that  the  human  consciousness  is  the  only  au- 
thority for  the  verification  of  truth.  But  the  reason 
or  consciousness  in  man  is  educed  by  a  divine  train- 
ing ;  the  original  forces  of  the  soul  are  trained  and 
enlarged  by  a  process  in  which  converge  the  course  of 
external  nature  and  all  the  events  of  human  history. 
The  reason  grows  from  age  to  age.  The  reason  of  the 
individual  can  be  no  standard  for  the  truth  until  he 
has  lived  in  the  experience  of  humanity,  discerning, 
however  dimly,  some  measure  of  the  arc  which  spans 
the  progress  of  the  whole.  Into  this  experience  Schlei- 
ermacher  had  entered  more  deeply  than  any  theologian 
who  had  preceded  him.  Living  in  the  universal  rea- 
son, he  could  no  longer  be  hampered  by  the  restricted 
opinion  of  Augustinian  theology,  which  had  confined 
all  direct  revelation  to  the  Jewish  people  until  the 
coming  of  Christ.  He  saw  that  Christianity  was  as 
closely  connected  with  paganism  as  with  Judaism; 
that,  so  far  as  its  inner  character  was  concerned,  there 
was  no  more  affinity  with  it  in  Judaism  than  in  the 
higher  forms  of  heathen  thought. 

Schleiermacher  also  gave  a  new  definition  of  the  su- 
pernatural, which,  if  accepted,  disposed  entirely  of  the 
questions  which  had  been  debated  between  the  ration- 
alists and  their  opponents.  He  did  not  regard  miracles 
as  the  mark  of  a  divine  revelation,  nor  was  it  by  them 
that  the  truth  of  Christianity  is  confirmed.  He  agreed 
with  the  deists  or  rationalists  in  so  regarding  the  nar 


MEANING   OF  THE   SUPERNATURAL.       391 

ture  of  the  divine  activity  in  the  world,  that  interpo- 
sitions or  interferences  were  incongruous  or  impossible. 
The  sphere  of  the  supernatural  includes  the  whole  life 
of  the  spirit  in  man,  in  so  far  as  it  is  higher  than  the 
life  of  nature.  Christianity,  as  a  revelation  or  in  his- 
tory, belongs  wholly  to  the  region  of  the  supernatural, 
as  do  also  all  of  God's  relations  with  the  human  con- 
science. But  the  supernatural  as  well  as  the  natural 
falls  within  the  realm  of  eternal  immutable  law. 
While  Christianity  and  the  results  it  produces  are  su- 
pernatural in  the  truest  sense,  as  belonging  to  a  higher 
sphere  than  the  natural  life  of  man,  yet  from  another 
point  of  view  the  supernatural  is  also  most  truly  nat- 
ural, for  it  represents  the  eternal  nature  of  things  in 
the  kingdom  of  the  spirit,  —  it  follows  a  law  which  is 
the  expression  of  the  inmost  mind  of  God.  Hence 
there  is  no  distinction  between  natural  and  revealed 
religion,  though  there  may  be  grades  in  the  process  of 
divine  revelation.  Christianity  is  revealed,  but  be- 
cause it  corresponds  to  the  needs  and  aspirations  of 
man  as  a  spiritual  being,  it  is  also  a  natural  religion. 
The  human  spirit  cannot  be  divorced  from  its  rela- 
tionship with  God.  Since  God  indwells  in  humanity, 
the  mind  of  man  is  in  necessary  and  continuous  con- 
tact with  an  infinite  spirit,  by  whose  inspiration  alone 
he  is  led  to  know  and  receive  the  truth.  The  reason  ' 
or  consciousness  is  divinely  gifted  with  the  power  to 
read  what  God  imparts.  It  is  as  vain  as  it  is  irra- 
tional to  attempt  to  draw  the  line  between  the  human 
reason  acting  by  itself  and  a  divine  reason  which  im- 
parts a  revelation.  To  do  so  is  to  separate  things  that 
are  allied  by  an  inner  principle  of  fitness,  to  regard 
man  as  separated  from,  or  independent  of,  the  action 
of  God. 


392  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

When  such  a  principle  is  applied  to  Scripture,  it 
redeems  it  from  the  misinterpretations  and  abuses 
which  have  obscured  its  meaning.  The  Bible  is  the 
record  of  God's  revelation  of  Himself  in  the  human 
consciousness,  —  a  revelation  addressed  to  man  through 
human  channels,  through  reason,  through  experience, 
through  all  the  events  and  discipline  of  life.  It  finds, 
therefore,  in  the  reason  or  consciousness  the  confirma- 
tion of  its  truth.  The  authority  of  the  Bible  lies  in 
the  appeal  which  it  makes  to  the  reason.  Even  in  its 
highest  utterances,  where  it  reflects  the  consciousness 
of  Him  who  was  in  the  fullest  sense  God  immanent  in 
humanity,  it  still  rests  for  its  attestation  upon  the  con- 
sciousness in  man  which  is  made  in  the  image  of  God. 
And  this  consciousness  in  man,  it  is  necessary  to  re- 
peat it,  to  which  is  referred  the  divine  revelation  as 
the  only  authority  capable  of  attesting  its  truth  and 
preserving  it  inviolate,  is  bound  in  eternal  ties  to  an 
infinite  spirit  whose  work  it  is  to  educate  it  to  its  task. 
It  is  a  consciousness  in  which  lie  imbedded  the  germs 
of  a  vast  process.  It  is  not  an  isolated  or  individual 
thing.  It  exists  necessarily  in  relationships:  on  the 
one  hand  with  God  who  is  its  author,  and  on  the  other 
with  humanity.  It  involves  in  its  highest,  completest 
action  the  idea  of  humanity  as  a  corporate  whole. 

From  this  point  of  view  is  easily  seen  the  derivation 
of  the  principles  of  modern  biblical  criticism.  If  the 
Brble  is  the  record  of  a  progressive  revelation,  it  must 
contain  much  in  its  earlier  portions  which  is  super- 
seded, or  even  contradicted,  by  the  later  and  higher 
truth.  The  deists  had  been  repelled  from  Scripture 
because  it  appeared  to  sanction  what  seemed  to  them 
irreconcilable  with  their  reason  or  conscience.  They 
could  make  no  allowances  for  the  imperfections,  the 


MODERN  BIBLICAL   CRITICISM,  893 

half-truths,  the  unlovely  distortions  which  contronted 
them  in  what  was  claimed  to  be  an  inspired,  infallible 
book.  But  while  they  were  urging  the  application  to 
religion  of  immutable  law,  they  were  ignorant  of  the 
all-inclusive  law  which  runs  through  human  existence, 
that  all  things  grow  from  rude  beginnings.  To  the 
modern  mind  the  Bible  would  be  incomplete,  unfit  to 
be  the  text-book  of  religion,  if  it  did  not  include  the 
traces  of  childhood's  faith  as  well  as  the  matured  ex- 
perience of  the  perfect  man.  To  look  beneath  the 
surface  of  much  that  is  repugnant  to  the  ideas  of  a 
later  age,  for  the  presence  of  the  same  humanity  that 
speaks  in  ourselves,  bearing  witness  to  its  relationship 
with  God,  to  foUow  the  growth  of  the  conscience  as 
under  a  divine  tuition  it  rises  to  more  adequate  con- 
ceptions of  God  •  and  man,  —  it  is  this  principle  in 
modern  criticism  which  has  given  a  higher  sanctity  to 
Scripture,  and  imparted  to  its  study  a  more  fruitful 
interest. 

But  Schleiermacher  did  not  stop  here.  He  applied 
the  same  principle  in  the  criticism  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Although  evangelists  and  apostles  spake  as 
they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  does  not 
follow  that  the  attribute  of  infallibility  pertains  to  all 
their  utterances.  They  were  expressing,  in  accord- 
ance with  their  different  temperaments  and  habits  of 
training,  the  influence  upon  their  minds  of  the  revela- 
tion in  Christ,  as  it  was  given  to  them  to  read  it.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  reconcile  their  utterances  in  some 
artificial  way,  to  interpret  St.  Paul  in  harmony  with 
St.  Peter  or  St.  James,  or  to  make  any  one  assertion 
the  standard  to  which  all  must  bend.  The  true  object 
of  biblical  criticism  is  to  ascertain  exactly  what  they 
thought,  and,  if  possible,  why  their  thought  should 


394  RENAISSANCE  OF  THEOLOGY. 

have  taken  the  shape  it  did.  The  different  types  of 
Christian  teaching  in  the  New  Testament  point  to 
differing  mental  knd  religious  attitudes,  to  differing 
degrees  in  the  power  of  apprehending  the  truth  of 
Christ,  or  differing  points  of  view  in  coming  to  its 
study.  This  variety  in  the  interpretation  of  Christian 
truth  is,  in  Schleiermacher's  opinion,  one  of  the  most 
valuable  features  of  the  New  Testament,  too  valuable 
to  be  explained  away.  It  further  points  to  the  com- 
prehensiveness and  true  catholicity  of  the  church  in 
its  early  days.  It  shows  that  Christian  fellowship 
does  not  depend  upon  agreement  in  the  intellectual 
apprehension  of  the  truth,  but  rather  upon  love  and 
devotion  to  the  personal  Christ. 

Schleiermacher  spoke  not  only  of  a  religious  con- 
sciousness in  man,  whose  primary  characteristic  was 
the  feeling  of  dependence  upon  God,  but  also  of  what 
he  called  the  Christian  consciousness,  —  the  product 
of  specifically  Christian  influences  during  the  ages  of 
the  church.  The  fact  of  a  Christ,  His  teaching,  and 
the  events  of  His  life,  had  entered  into  history,  be- 
coming inwrought,  as  it  were,  into  the  consciousness,  as 
if  an  essential  part  of  its  furniture.  For  this  reason 
the  history  of  the  church  became  the  continuation  of 
a  revealing  process,  in  which  the  action  of  God,  as 
the  indwelling  spirit,  perpetuated  and  developed  the 
work  of  Christ.  Wherever  the  human  mind  was  seen 
seeking  to  understand  or  explain  the  teaching  it  had 
received  from  Christ,  there  also  the  traces  of  an  in- 
finite spirit  might  be  discerned  struggling  to  over- 
come human  errors  and  infirmities,  or  enforcing  some 
neglected  aspect  of  Christian  truth.  A  view  like  this 
redeemed  the  study  of  history  from  the  perversions 
which,  like  the  Bible,  it  had  suffered  from  those  who 


IMPORTANCE   OF  THE   CHURCH,  395 

claimed  it  as  their  own.  As  in  the  one  case  the  nature 
and  method  of  divine  revelation,  in  all  its  breadth 
and  grandeur,  had  been  sacrificed  to  the  exigencies  of 
what  was  called  the  "  analogy  of  faith,"  so  Christian 
history  had  been  interpreted  in  accordance  with  eccle- 
siastical analogies,  whether  Latin  or  Calvinistic  or 
Anglican.  It  was  a  wonderful  moment  in  the  church's 
life,  when,  under  the  inspiration  of  Schleiermacher's 
example,  Germany  turned  away  from  empty  disputes 
between  rationalists  and  supra-rationalists  to  study  the 
records  of  Christian  history,  with  the  single  purpose 
of  following  the  Christian  principle  as  it  evolved  itself 
in  the  human  consciousness. 

It  was  a  feature  in  Schleiermacher's  thought,  which 
commended  him  to  Roman  Catholic  as  well  as  Lu- 
theran theologians,  that  he  attached  the  highest  impor- 
tance to  the  church  and  its  institutions.  The  effort 
to  escape  from  the  tyranny  of  the  Latin  church  over 
the  intellect  and  the  conscience  had  necessarily  bred 
a  disposition  to  regard  organized  Christianity  as  a 
matter  of  secondary  importance.  With  this  tendency 
the  spirit  of  individualism  was  in  harmony.  The  doc- 
trine of  election,  when  detached  from  the  ecclesiastical 
organization  with  which  Augustine  had  associated  it, 
had  led  men  to  feel  that  salvation  was  altogether  a 
private  or  personal  affair.  The  same  consequence 
resulted  from  the  doctrine  of  probation.  In  its  medi- 
aeval interpretation,  after  Gregory  the  Great  had  sub- 
stituted it  as  the  true  theory  of  life  in  place  of  pre- 
destination, it  was  still  a  process  within  the  church. 
In  the  modified  Calvinism  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
when  probation  again  displaced  election,  it  was  prac- 
tically presented  as  a  view  of  life  to  which  the  church 
was  not  essential;  each  man  was  to  be  saved  in  his 


896  RENAISSANCE   OF   THEOLOGY. 

solitariness  and  isolation  ;  the  fellowship  of  men,  de- 
sirable as  it  might  be  for  other  reasons,  had  no  nec- 
essary organic  relationship  to  the  accomplishment  of 
individual  destiny.  When  men  had  rejected  the  me- 
diaeval idea  of  the  church,  which  claimed  for  the 
clergy  peculiar  gifts  and  powers  of  grace  held  in  trust 
for  the  laity,  it  was  not  easy  to  say  exactly  what 
purpose  the  church  served  in  the  economy  of  religion. 
The  deists  and  rationalists,  more  particularly,  had 
reached  the  conclusion  that  it  was  an  incumbrance 
and  not  a  help,  an  antiquated  relic  of  a  superstitious 
age. 

Schleiermacher  asserted  the  importance  of  the 
church,  as  vitally  related  to  the  well-being  of  men, 
with  a  vigor  and  directness  which  even  an  adherent 
of  the  old  order  might  welcome.  It  is  true  that  the 
church,  as  he  conceived  it,  was  no  longer  the  hierarchy, 
or  an  institution  holding  a  deposit  of  grace,  which 
might  be  thought  of  as  separate  from  the  people. 
He  agreed  with  Wycliffe,  with  Luther,  with  Hooker, 
that  it  is  the  congregation  of  faithful  men.  But  to 
the  church,  as  thus  defined,  he  assigned  the  highest 
significance,  making  it  essential  to  the  realization  of 
human  redemption.  Salvation,  instead  of  being  ex- 
clusively an  individual  process,  is  accomplished  only 
through  the  fellowship  of  the  church.  The  principle 
of  association  enters  into  the  religion  of  Christ  as  a 
necessary  factor.  The  Spirit  which  saves  men  is  a 
spirit  of  holy  fellowship,  seeking  to  unite  them  more 
closely  together.  It  is  a  spirit  of  love,  and  not  of 
selfishness  or  division.  Man  is  most  highly  exalted 
and  honored  by  his  membership  in  a  common  human- 
ity, of  which  Christ  is  the  head.  It  is  in  his  relation- 
ship to  the  race  of  mankind  that  he   has   been  re- 


INFLUENCE   OF  SCHLEIERMACHER.       897 

deemed.  In  the  church,  as  the  congregation  of  faith- 
ful men,  there  is  the  conscious  knowledge  of  the 
work  of  Christ ;  it  is  the  pledge  of  a  regenerated 
society  to  be  realized  in  the  future,  the  picture  and 
the  model  after  which  is  slowly  fashioning  itself  the 
kingdom  of  God  in  the  world.  To  the  church,  in 
this  higher  conception  of  its  nature,  is  committed  the 
work,  under  the  Holy  Spirit,  of  educating  humanity, 
by  preserving  and  extending  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness till  the  praj^er  of  Christ  is  fulfilled.  To  this  end 
its  organization  is  important ;  its  positive  institutions 
possess  a  sacred  and  binding  character,  —  they  are 
essential  to  the  well-being  of  an  external  society 
which  proposes  to  itself  no  less  an  end  than  the 
conversion  of  the  world  to  Christ. 

The  theology  of  Schleiermacher,  if  it  had  been  pre- 
sented to  the  world  under  different  auspices,  or  in 
some  other  period  of  the  church's  history,  might  have 
left  no  impression  and  been  soon  forgotten.  It  shows 
the  change  which  has  come  over  the  church,  that  such 
has  not  been  its  fate.  It  is  a  theology  which  has 
grown  out  of  the  conditions  of  modern  thought.  As 
truly  as  Augustine  represented  his  age,  and  therefore 
profoundly  affected  the  fortunes  of  the  church,  so 
Schleiermacher  still  utters  the  truth  to  which  all 
that  is  highest  in  modern  Christianity  continues  to 
respond.  The  spiritual  forces  which  combined  to 
form  his  thought  at  the  opening  of  the  century  have 
none  of  them  lost  their  power ;  as  time  has  gone  on 
they  have  rather  gained  in  intensity  and  extended 
their  action  more  widely.  Wherever  their  influence 
has  been  felt,  or  the  influence  of  any  one  of  them, 
there  has  followed,  as  by  a  necessary  law  of  human 
thought,  the  inclination  to  pronounce  the  conclusions 


\ 


398  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

which  he  was  the  first  to  draw.  His  name  is  held  in 
honor  in  Germany  as  that  of  one  from  whom  dates  a 
"  new  era  in  the  history  of  theology."  The  great 
German  theologians  who  have  come  after  him  have 
been  his  disciples.  Directly  or  indirectly  his  influence 
has  been  telling  upon  every  student  of  religious  truth 
in  this  country  and  in  England.  Even  the  traditional 
theology  of  the  Latin  church  has  caught  something 
from  his  inspiration  by  which  it  has  been  enabled  to 
present  its  tenets  in  a  fairer  light,  and  to  give  a  more 
rational  account  of  its  origin  and  place  in  history.^ 

In  other  ages  Schleiermacher  might  have  passed 
for  a  mystic.  It  is  among  the  changes  which  his  in- 
fluence has  helped  to  accomplish  that  what  has  been 
called  mysticism  has  at  last  been  legitimatized  in  the 
church.  Mysticism  was  indeed  but  the  Latin  name 
for  the  Greek  theology,  which  had  become  so  un- 
familiar that  those  who,  ever  and  anon,  had  caught 
something  of  its  spirit  seemed  to  their  contemporaries 
to  be  speaking  in  an  unknown  tongue.  Even  Athana- 
sius  would  have  been  called  a  mystic  had  he  lived  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  or  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when 
principles  so  diverse  from  his  own  were  the  axioms 
of  Christian  thought.  The  modern  church  has  given 
birth  to  none  who  are  specially  designated  as  mystics, 
because  the  essential  principle  of  mysticism  has  entered 
as  a  ruling  idea  into  advancing  inquiry  in  theology,  j 

^  Among  the  best  known  of  the  German  theologians  who  have 
acknowledged  the  influence  of  Schleiermacher  are  Neander, 
Nitzsch,  Liicke,  Olshausen,  Ullman,  Julius  Miiller,  Dorner,  De 
Wette,  Gieseler,  Twesten,  etc.  Among  Roman  Catholics,  Mbliler 
adopted  Schleiermacher's  idea  of  development,  applying  it  as  a 
method  of  explaining  the  contents  of  tradition,  in  place  of  the 
old  method  of  urging  the  "secret  discipline."  In  this  respect 
even  Cardinal  Newman  must  plead  guilty  of  having  come  under 
German  influences. 


MYSTICISM  AND  LATIN  THEOLOGY.      399 

As  the  positive  convictions  of  Schleiermacher, 
which  have  wrought  the  revolution  in  modern  relig- 
ious thought,  are  identical  with  the  principles  pro- 
fessed by  Clement  of  Alexandria  in  the  second  century, 
so  also  his  negations  were  the  negations  of  Greek  ' 
theology.  He  resisted  the  spirit  and  the  results  of 
rationalism,  so  far  as  they  were  antagonistic  to  the 
interests  of  genuine  Christianity ;  but  he  accepted  / 
what  the  last  century  was  almost  unanimous  in  affirm- 
ing,— that  the  tenets  of  Latin  theology  had  no  ground 
in  the  reason.  To  him,  as  to  the  deists,  such  beliefs 
as  the  total  corruption  of  human  nature  by  Adam's 
fall,  or  the  expiation  of  sin  by  the  blood  of  Christ 
shed  as  in  a  literal  sacrifice  of  the  old  Jewish  dis- 
pensation, or  the  endless  punishment  of  the  wicked, 
were  repugnant,  —  he  found  them,  as  he  said,  neither 
in  the  gospel  nor  in  his  heart.  So  also  with  the  doc- 
trine of  the  trinity,  as  it  had  been  expounded  by 
Latin  theologians.  The  current  conception  of  per- 
sonality, when  applied  to  Deity,  seemed  to  him  inade- 
quate, as  though  it  limited  the  nature  of  God.  While 
he  denied  the  divine  personality,  in  its  popular  ac- 
ceptation, and  his  thought  of  God  in  this  respect  re- 
mained vague  and  unsatisfactory,  yet  his  denial  was  a 
preliminary  step  toward  a  vaster,  more  spiritual  con- 
ception of  the  nature  of  Deity.  In  this  respect  also 
he  was  a  type  of  his  age,  prophesying  by  his  failures 
that  an  hour  was  coming  again  in  the  history  of  relig- 
ious thought  when  the  mind  would  concentrate  its 
energies,  as  in  the  ancient  church,  upon  the  idea  of 
God.  For  the  same  reason  that  the  ordinary  idea  of 
personality  seemed  inapplicable  to  God,  the  popular 
notion  of  immortality  seemed  unworthy  of  belief. 
That  man  should  simply  continue  to  exist  forever  in 


400  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

his  independence  and  separateness  from  God  appeared 
to  him  as  unreasonable  as  it  was  undesirable.  For 
immortality,  as  meaning  merely  an  endless  existence, 
he  found  no  warrant  in  the  instincts  of  the  soul.  But 
to  gain  an  immortal  life  in  God,  to  lose  the  individual 
existence  in  order  to  find  it  again  in  God  in  fuller 
measure,  this  was  the  only  goal  worth  placing  before 
humanity,  the  only  view  which  would  emancipate  re- 
ligion from  sordid  and  selfish  considerations. 


in. 

However  inadequate  may  have  been  Schleiermach- 
er's  expression  of  the  larger  conception  of  Deity  which 
he  aimed  to  reach,  such  a  conception  was  none  the 
less  the  motive  which  inspired  every  attitude  of  his 
thought.  The  doctrine  of  the  immanence  of  Deity 
gives  to  his  theology  the  vast  expansion  of  its  range,  its 
profound  suggestiveness,  its  lofty  spirituality.  A  cer- 
tain tone  of  exhilaration  marks  his  language,  as  though 
the  paradisiacal  conditions  of  human  life  had  been 
restored,  as  though  God  were  making  all  things  new. 
As  if  he  breathed  the  air  of  a  redeemed  world  redolent 
with  the  presence  of  Deity,  in  whom  he  now  lived  and 
moved  and  had  his  being,  as  truly  as  he  should  do 
hereafter,  he  broke  forth  in  those  remarkable  words 
which  recall  the  spiritual  enthusiasm  of  his  great  pred- 
ecessor in  the  ancient  church  :  — 

"  Unenfeebled  will  I  bring  my  spirit  down  to  life's  closing 
period :  never  shall  the  genial  courage  of  life  desert  me ; 
what  gladdens  me  now  shall  gladden  me  ever ;  my  imagina- 
tion shall  continue  lively,  and  my  will  unbroken,  and  nothing 
shall  force  from  my  hand  the  magic  key  which  opens  the 
mysterious  gates  of  the  upper  world,  and  the  fire  of  love 


THE  NEW  ENTHUSIASM.  401 

within  me  shall  never  be  extinguished.  I  will  not  look 
upon  the  dreaded  weakness  of  age ;  I  pledge  myself  to  su- 
preme contempt  of  every  toil  which  does  not  concern  the 
true  end  of  my  existence,  and  I  vow  to  remain  forever 
young.  .  .  .  The  spirit  which  impels  man  forward  shall 
never  fail  me,  and  the  longing  which  is  never  satisfied  with 
what  has  been,  but  ever  goes  forth  to  meet  the  new,  shall 
still  be  mine.  The  glory  I  shall  seek  is  to  know  that  my 
aim  is  infinite,  and  yet  never  to  pause  in  my  course.  .  .  . 
I  shall  never  think  myself  old  until  my  work  is  done,  and 
that  work  will  not  be  done  while  I  know  and  will  what  I 
ought.  ...  To  the  end  of  life  I  am  determined  to  grow 
stronger  and  livelier  by  every  act,  and  more  vital  through 
every  self-improvement.  .  .  .  When  the  light  of  my  eyes 
shall  fade,  and  the  gray  hairs  shall  sprinkle  my  blonde  locks, 
my  spirit  shall  still  smile.  No  event  shall  have  power  to 
disturb  my  heart ;  the  pulse  of  my  imier  life  shall  remain 
fresh  whUe  hfe  endures."  ^ 

The  poet  Goethe  had  felt,  like  Schleiermacher,  the 
influence  of  Spinoza,  experiencing  a  profound  disturb- 
ance in  the  depths  of  his  being  as  he  received  the 
idea  of  indwelling  God.     When  applied  to  nature,  it 

*  Hagenbach,  History  of  the  Church  in  the  Eighteenth  and  Nine- 
teenth  Centuries  (Amer.  trans.),  vol.  ii.  p.  330. 

"  In  contradistinction,  therefore,  to  the  older  people,  the  new 
people  are  called  young,  having  learned  the  new  blessings ;  and 
we  have  the  exuberance  of  life's  morning  prime  in  this  youth 
which  knows  no  old  age,  in  which  we  are  always  growing  to 
maturity  in  intelligence,  are  always  young,  always  mild,  always 
new;  for  those  must  necessarily  be  new  who  have  become  par- 
takers of  the  new  Word.  And  that  which  participates  in  eternity 
is  wont  to  be  assimilated  to  the  incorruptible ;  so  that  to  us  ap- 
pertains the  designation  of  the  age  of  childhood,  a  life-long 
spring-time,  because  the  truth  that  is  in  us,  and  our  habits  satu- 
rated with  the  truth,  cannot  be  touched  by  old  age." —  Clemens 
Alex,f  Paedag.,  i.  c.  5. 

26 


402  RENAISSANCE   OF   THEOLOGY. 

revealed  to  him  the  outer  world  instinct  with  a  divine 
life ;  as  he  expresses  it  in  "  Faust,"  "  the  living  garment 
of  the  Deity."  The  precocious  child  who  corresponded 
with  him  was  revealing  his  spell  upon  her  sensitive 
imagination,  as  she  wrote,  "  When  I  stand  all  alone 
at  night  in  open  nature,  I  feel  as  though  it  were  a 
spirit  and  begged  redemption  of  me.  Often  have  I 
had  the  sensation,  as  if  nature,  in  wailing  sadness, 
entreated  something  of  me,  so  that  not  to  understand 
what  she  longed  cut  through  my  very  heart."  In 
one  of  his  shorter  poems  Goethe  has  given  an  almost 
dogmatic  form  to  his  belief  in  the  immanence  of 
God:  — 

"No!  such  a  God  my  worship  may  not  win 
Who  lets  the  world  about  His  finger  spin 
A  thing  extern :  my  God  must  rule  within, 
And  whom  I  own  for  Father,  God,  Creator, 
Hold  nature  in  Himself,  Himself  in  nature  ; 
And  in  His  kindly  arms  embraced,  the  whole 
Doth  live  and  move  by  His  pervading  soul."  ^ 

Coleridge  was  to  England,  both  in  theology  and  lit- 
erature, what  Schleiermacher  and  Goethe  were  to  Ger- 
many. The  same  antecedent  influences  had  entered 
into  his  being.  Growing  up  under  the  traditions  of 
the  eighteenth  century  he  had  undergone  a  revolution 
in  his  spirit,  as  he  yielded  to  the  magic  power  which 
was  transforming  the  age.  He  read  Plato  in  the  light 
of  his  Alexandrian   commentators  ;  he  studied  Kant, 

^  "  Was  war'  ein  Gott,  der  nur  von  aussen  stiesse 
Im  Kreis  das  All  am  Finger  laufen  liesse  ! 
Ihm  ziemt's,  die  Welt  im  Innern  zu  bewegen, 
Natur  in  Sich,  Sich  in  Natur  zu  hegen, 
So  dass  was  in  Ihm  lebt  und  webt  und  ist, 
Nie  Seine  Kraft,  nie  Seinen  Geist  vermisst." 

From  verses  entitled  Gott  und  Welt. 


COLERIDGE  AS  A    THEOLOGIAN.  403 

and  more  especially  Schelling ;  he  also  was  thrilled  by 
the  prospect  of  a  great  future  for  humanity,  of  which 
the  French  Revolution  had  seemed  to  him  a  foretaste ; 
he  bent  before  Spinoza,  receiving  the  full  significance 
of  his  thought,  and  yet  discerning  more  clearly  than 
Schleiermacher  had  done  wherein  lay  the  deficiency  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  "  one  substance."  It  has  been  said 
of  him,  that  taking  up  a  volume  of  Spinoza  he  kissed 
the  portrait  of  his  face,  and  said,  "  This  book  is  a 
gospel  to  me;  "  but  he  immediately  added,  "His  phi- 
losophy is  nevertheless  false."  The  weakness  of  Spi- 
noza's teaching,  he  went  on  to  affirm,  lay  in  his  begin- 
ning with  an  "  it  is  "  instead  of  the  '*  I  am."  In  his 
desultory  poems,  where  the  truth  of  the  divine  im- 
manence is  seen  inspiring  his  thought,  he  reveals  also 
the  process  in  his  mind  accompanying  its  reception,  as 
though  such  a  belief  were  unbecoming  to  weak  and 
sinful  man;  as  if  a  lower  flight  were  better  suited  to 
humanity  in  its  present  stage  of  existence.  There 
are  passages,  however,  in  Coleridge's  poetry  which  as- 
sert this  conviction  in  language  so  unqualified  that 
if  we  did  not  know  how  deep  and  unshaken  was  his 
adherence  to  the  personality  of  God,  we  might  think 
them  the  utterances  of  undisguised  pantheism,  con- 
founding God  with  his  creation  :  — 

"  'T  is  the  sublime  of  man, 
Our  noontide  majesty,  to  know  ourselves 
Parts  and  proportions  of  one  wondrous  whole. 
This  fraternizes  man,  this  constitutes 
Our  charities  and  bearings.     But  't  is  God 
Diffused  through  all  that  doth  make  all  one  whole; 
This  the  worst  superstition,  him  except 
Aught  to  desire,  Supreme  Reality." 

Dr  again,  speaking  of  nature  in  its  relation  to  God: — 


404  RENAISSANCE   OF   THEOLOGY. 

"  And  what  if  all  animated  nature 
Be  but  organic  harps  diversely  framed, 
That  tremble  into  thought,  as  o'er  them  sweeps 
Plastic  and  vast  one  intellectual  breeze. 
At  once  the  soul  of  each,  and  God  of  all  ?  " 

The  true  idea  of  immortality  is  finely  expressed  in 
language  that  would  meet  the  demand  of  Schleier- 
macher's  aspiration ;  — 

"  Lovely  was  the  death 
Of  Him  whose  life  was  love.     Holy  with  power 
He,  on  the  thought-benighted  sceptic,  beamed 
Manifest  Godhead,  melting  into  day 
What  floating  mists  of  dark  idolatry 
Broke  and  misshaped  the  Omnipresent  Sire  ; 
And  first  by  Fear  uncharmed  the  drowsed  soul 
Till  of  its  nobler  nature  it  'gan  feel 
Dim  recollections  ;  and  then  soared  to  Hope, 
Strong  to  believe  whate'er  of  mystic  good 
Th'  Eternal  dooms  for  his  immortal  sons. 
From  Hope  and  firmer  Faith  to  perfect  Love 
Attracted  and  absorbed  ;  and  center'd  there 
God  only  to  behold,  and  know,  and  feel, 
Till,  by  exclusive  consciousness  of  God, 
All  self-annihilated,  it  shall  make 
God  its  identity  ;  God  all  in  all ! 
We  and  our  Father  one  !  " 

The  spirit  of  Wordsworth's  poetry  bears  Witness  to 
his  consciousness  of  the  larger  revelation  which  God 
was  vouchsafing  to  his  age.  In  its  light  he  saw  hu- 
manity clothed  with  a  new  dignity:  even  the  lowliest 
and  most  common  things  were  invested  with  a  sacred 
charm,  because  all  things  were  viewed  as  if  in 
God:  — 

« I  have  felt 
A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts  ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused. 


MODERN  ART  RELATED   TO   THEOLOGY,     405 

Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky  and  in  the  mind  of  man  : 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

Even  Shelley,  who  has  been  set  down  as  an  atheist 
for  rejecting,  in  somewhat  contemptuous  language,  the 
deism  which  the  popular  religious  mind  had  not  out- 
grown, illustrates  the  working  of  some  deeper,  more 
comprehensive  idea  of  God  at  the  basis  of  the  aspira- 
tions, the  struggles,  the  confusions,  and  the  discontent 
which  marked  his  inner  life.  "  His  subtle  intellect," 
says  his  biographer,  "delighted  in  the  thought  that 
behind  the  universal  mind,  behind  even  the  life  of  its 
life,  which  he  calls  spirit,  there  was  some  more  recon- 
dite principle,  some  more  essential  substance,  the 
nature  of  which  we  cannot  imagine  or  find  a  name 
for." 

The  same  influence  which  was  remoulding  religious 
thought  and  inspiring  a  fresh  literature  appears  also 
in  art,  whose  affiliation  with  theology  is  of  no  acci- 
dental kind.^  The  founder  of  a  new  school  arose  in 
Turner,  whose  greatness  lay  in  his  power  to  repre- 
sent nature  as  it  appeared  after  passing  through  the 

^  "We  shall  find,"  says  Ruskin,  "that  the  love  of  nature, 
wherever  it  has  existed,  has  been  a  faithful  and  sacred  element 
of  human  feeling;  that  is  to  say,  supposing  all  the  circumstances 
otherwise  the  same  with  respect  to  two  individuals,  the  one  who 
loves  nature  most  will  always  be  found  to  have  more  capacity  for 
faith  in  God  than  the  other."  The  devotion  to  nature,  he  further 
remarks,  "  will  be  found  to  bring  with  it  such  a  sense  of  the 
presence  and  power  of  the  Great  Spirit  as  no  mere  reasoning  can 
either  induce  or  controvert."  "  It  becomes  the  channel  of  cer- 
tain sacred  truths  which  by  no  other  means  can  be  conveyed."  — 
Frondes  AgresteSy  sect.  viii.  62. 


406  RENAISSANCE  OF  THEOLOGY. 

medium  of  the  human  spirit.  The  principle  of  the 
spiritual  interpretation  of  nature  in  art,  through  the 
power  of  the  human  imagination  in  reading  its  hidden 
meaning,  was  seen  by  William  Blake,  to  whom  religion 
and  artistic  insight  were  identical,  though  his  state- 
ment of  the  principle  may  seem  exaggerated  or  fanci- 
ful:— 

"  I  assert  for  myself  that  I  do  not  behold  the  outward 
creation,  and  that  to  me  it  is  hindrance  and  not  action. 
What !  it  will  be  questioned,  '  when  the  sun  rises  do  you 
not  see  a  round  disc  of  fire,  somewhat  hke  a  guinea  ?  '  Oh, 
no  !  no  !  I  see  an  innumerable  company  of  the  heavenly 
host,  crying  Holy,  Holy,  Holy  is  the  Lord  God  Almighty. 
I  question  not  my  corporal  eye  any  more  than  I  would  ques- 
tion a  window  concerning  a  sight.  I  look  through  it,  and 
not  with  it." 

It  has  been  a  fortunate  coincidence  that  modern 
science  should  have  been  attended  by  such  a  com- 
panion as  modern  art,  to  prevent  it  from  degenerating 
to  a  merely  physical  basis,  apart  from  God  and  from 
its  inner  relations  to  the  human  spirit.  But  science 
also  has  contributed  to  illustrate  and  enforce  the  belief 
that  God  indwells  in  His  creation.  The  acknowledg- 
ment of  its  indebtedness  to  science  for  the  confirma- 
tion of  this  truth  is  a  duty  which  theology  has  been 
slow  in  rendering.  The  mystics  of  the  last  century 
were  hovering  in  thought  about  a  mystery  contained 
in  nature  which  had  some  close  connection  with  the 
religious  life.  The  mystery  was  no  other  than  the 
divine  immanence  in  nature  as  revealed  in  the  forces 
whose  activity  is  everywhere  governed  by  eternal,  im- 
mutable law.  Hitherto,  in  the  popular  conception  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  as  well  as  under  the  influence  of 
Calvin's  theology,  the  great  processes  of  nature  were 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  REACTION,        407 

believed  to  be  carried  on  from  without  by  angelic 
mediators,  to  each  of  whom  was  assigned  his  special 
office.  It  would  have  been  a  poor  substitute  for  so 
beautiful  and  poetic  a  belief,  if  the  laws  of  nature 
had  been  shown  to  be  necessary  forces  apart  from 
God.  But  when  Deity  is  revealed  as  immanent  in 
the  life  of  nature,  it  implies  a  sense  of  nearer  and 
closer  relationship  to  God  than  the  angelic  host  in  all 
its  beauty  and  splendor  could  ever  convey.  To  have 
God  Himself  is  the  highest  reach  and  aspiration  of 
the  soul. 

IV. 

The  influence  of  any  great  reformer  like  Schleier- 
macher,  who  opens  up  a  new  era  in  the  history  of 
religious  thought,  may  be  traced  in  those  who  are  un- 
prepared to  receive  the  truth  which  he  announces  as 
well  as  in  those  who  embrace  it  or  carry  on  its  devel- 
opment. To  the  former  it  will  seem  a  source  only  of 
confusion  and  disintegration.  To  the  large  majority 
with  whom  the  idea  of  a  personal  God  was  associated 
with  the  deistic  notion  of  His  separation  from  the 
world,  all  efforts  to  reach  a  larger  conception  of  His 
personality,  or  to  view  Him  as  indwelling  in  nature 
and  in  humanity,  seemed  to  savor  either  of  pantheism 
or  atheism.  Such  a  Deity  as  Schleiermacher  wor- 
shiped was  to  them  no  God  at  all.  They  were  lest 
in  a  wilderness  of  vague  negations  when  they  at- 
tempted to  follow  the  tendencies  of  modern  thought. 
It  seemed  as  though  all  definite  truth  was  slipping 
from  their  grasp.  They  could  not  distinguish  between 
the  destructive  spirit  of  the  old  rationalism  and  the 
constructive  mood  of  the  new  era. 

The  impulse  given  by  Schleiermacher  to   biblical 


408  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

criticism  was  leading  to  results  which  to  the  minds  of 
many  made  all  revelation  seem  impossible.  They 
could  understand  how  revelation  could  be  imparted  in 

4-  a  book,  which  had  been  preserved  by  ecclesiastical 
guardians  or  by  some  miraculous  agency,  but  they 
could  not  see  how  the  revelation  of  God  to  man  was 
a  continuo^is  process  through  the  reason,  through  ex- 
,  perience,  through  the  courses  of  history,  or  through 
the  events  and  discipline  of  life.  The  free  handling 
of  Scripture,  although  in  a  devout  spirit,  was  to  them 
an  endangering  of  its  integrity  as  the  word  of  God. 
What  was  to  be  the  end  of  it  all,  what  would  remain 
of  the  Bible,  if  every  man  was  to  be  at  liberty  to  select 

.  or  reject,  according  to  his  own  judgment,  what  was 
true  or  false  ?  If  certain  books  were  to  be  set  aside 
as  having  no  place  in  the  Canon,  who  could  say  by 
what  principle  others  should  be  retained  ?  If  cer- 
tain accounts  were  to  be  regarded  as  poetical  or  alle- 
gorical, which  had  been  always  thought  to  be  the 
statements  of  sober  facts,  who  could  tell  where  ro- 
mance ended  and  reality  began  ?  If  it  were  once 
allowed  that  there  were  mistakes  in  Scripture,  or  irrec- 
oncilable discrepancies,  if  it  were  admitted  that  nar- 
ratives had  been  exaggerated  or  colored  by  the  indi- 
viduality of  the  writers,  or  that  certain  books  had 
been  written  in  the  interest  of  some  tendency  of  opin- 
ion, what  guarantee  had  any  one  of  the  truth  of  a 
divine  revelation  ? 

The  idea  that  reason  was  divine,  or  that  humanity 
emancipated  from  the  old  superstitions  was  entering 
upon  a  higher  stage  in  its  career,  or  that  liberty  was 
the  inalienable  possession  of  all  men,  —  truths  like 
these  which  had  been  identified  with  the  French  Rev- 

\       olution,  and  were  believed  to  have  sanctioned  its  ex- 


THE  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  CHURCH.         409 

cesses,  did  not  commend  themselves  to  statesmen  and 
ecclesiastics  who  still  imagined  that  the  conduct  of  the 
world  had  been  committed  to  their  charge.  It  had 
been  one  of  the  indirect  results  of  Schleiermacher's  in- 
fluence that  he  had  stimulated  a  revival  of  the  old 
ecclesiasticism  as  well  as  a  higher  view  of  the  nature 
and  functions  of  the  church.  Even  before  the  re- 
action began,  men  were  getting  tired  of  the  confu- 
sion and  of  the  freedom  which  seemed  to  mean  only- 
license,  and  were  turning  again  with  longing  eyes  to 
the  "  ages  of  faith  "  when  the  church  held  men  in  due 
subjection  to  authority.  The  Middle  Ages  seen  by 
the  light  shed  upon  them  by  the  modern  study  of 
their  history  were  not  as  repulsive  as  an  ultra-Protest- 
antism had  painted  them.  To  restore  the  church  to 
its  old  supremacy  seemed  to  be  the  one  duty  of  the 
hour  in  view  of  the  dangerous  tendencies  which  the 
democratic  principle  was  encouraging.  The  treatment 
which  the  Roman  Catholic  church  had  received  in  the 
French  Revolution,  as  well  as  at  the  hands  of  Napo- 
leon, was  awakening  everywhere  a  sympathy  for  the 

/  old  ecclesiastical  order.  The  French  writer,  De  Mais- 
tre,  in  whom  was  concentrated,  in  its  most  vindent 
form,  the  spirit  of  the  rising  reaction,  denounced  the 
French  Revolution  and  the  principles  which  led  to  it, 

^  as  the  work  of  Satan  let  loose  upon  the  world.  To 
his  mind  the  democratic  idea  was  essentially  false  in 
all  its  manifestations ;  the  Pope  was  the  only  saviour 
of  society  from  impending  dissolution.  The  Jesuit 
order  which  had  been  dissolved  by  Pope  Clement 
XIV.,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century, 

I  was  reconstituted  in  1814  by  Pius  VII. ;  attention 
was  again  directed  to  the  inquisition  and  the  "  index 
of  prohibited  books,"  as  means  for  suppressing  within 


410  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

the  church  all  knowledge  and  inquiry  not  favorable 
to  the  dignity  and  prerogatives  of  the  Roman  see. 
Statesmen  united  with  ecclesiastics  in  the  endeavor  to 
restore  and  support  the  church  as  the  best  bulwark  of 
society  against  the  destructive  tendencies  of  demo- 
cratic reform,  as  well  as  the  no  less  fatal  tendencies  of 
liberalism  in  theology. 

The  ecclesiastical  reaction  was  precipitated  in  Eng- 
land by  the  movement  of  a  liberal  government  toward 
a  reform  of  the  church.  Already  the  idea  had  taken 
root  in  the  minds  of  those  'who  were  to  be  its  lead- 
ers, that  the  church  was  too  sacred  to  be  touched  by 
the  hands  of  the  secular  authority.  To  arouse  among 
the  English  people  a  deeper  sense  of  the  sanctity  of 
the  ecclesiastical  organization  was  one  object  of  the 
agitation  which  owned  Newman  as  its  leading  spirit. 
But  to  Newman's  mind  liberalism  in  theology  was  the 
worst  enemy  which  the  church  had  to  encounter,  — 
the  source  of  every  other  evil  which  afflicted  it.  The 
object  of  the  movement  known  as  Tractarianism,  New- 
man confesses  in  his  "Apologia,"  was  "to  hurl  back 
the  aggressive  force  of  the  human  intellect."  In  or- 
der to  overcome  liberalism,  he  set  himself  to  restore 
the  idea  of  the  church  as  it  had  appeared  to  the  Latin 
fathers  in  the  early  centuries.^  The  first  doctrine 
which  he  attempted  to  revive  was  the  "  Apostolical 
Succession,"  as  it  had  been  held  by  TertuUian,  Ire- 
nseus,  and  Cyprian.  To  the  bishops,  according  to  this 
idea,  had  been  committed  the  "  deposit "  of  the  faith, 
and  at  their  hands  the  church  must  continue  to  re- 
ceive it.     Tradition  must  take  the  place  of  free  inves- 

^  A  glance  at  the  Tracts  for  the  Times  is  sufficient  to  show  that 
it  was  Latin  fathers  almost  exclusively  who  received  attention 
from  the  Tractarian  School. 


THE   TRACTARIAN  MOVEMENT.  411 

tigation  as  the  sole  authority  for  the  truth.  Newman 
felt  that  the  Bible  was  an  unsafe  book  unless  inter- 
preted by  the  Fathers.  He  rejected  the  idea  that  God 
revealed  Himself  through  the  consciousness  of  man, 
or  that  the  human  reason  was  an  evidence  of  the  in- 
dwelling of  a  divine  reason.  "If  I  looked,"  so  he 
said,  "  into  a  mirror  and  did  not  see  my  face,  I  should 
have  the  sort  of  feeling  which  actually  comes  upon  me 
when  I  look  into  this  living,  busy  world,  and  see  no 
reflection  of  its  Creator.  The  sight  of  the  world  is 
nothing  else  than  the  prophet's  scroll,  full  of  lamen- 
tation, mourning,  and  woe."  God  and  humanity  to 
his  mind  were  alien  to  each  other,  —  the  human  race 
was  implicated  in  some  terrible  aboriginal  calamity. 
"  The  tendency  of  the  human  reason  is  toward  a  sim- 
ple unbelief  in  matters  of  religion.  No  truth,  how- 
ever sacred,  can  stand  against  it  in  the  long  run."  To 
the  discoveries  of  modern  science,  that  the  powers 
which  control  the  life  of  nature  are  immanent  in 
nature,  Newman  was  indifferent.  God  was  separated 
from  nature  as  from  humanity.  It  was  angels  who 
conducted  as  mediators  the  processes  of  the  external 
world  ;  or  in  his  own  exquisite  language,  whose  beauty 
might  make  one  oblivious  to  the  higher  truth  :  "  Every 
breath  of  air  and  ray  of  light  and  heat,  every  beau- 
tiful prospect  is,  as  it  were,  the  skirts  of  their  gar- 
ments, the  waving  of  the  robes  of  those  whose  faces 
see  God."  1 

^  One  of  the  worst  evils  which  has  been  wrought  by  the  eccle- 
siastical reaction  in  the  nineteenth  century  has  been  the  breach 
between  religion  and  science.  Their  relation  in  the  last  century 
has  not  only  not  been  retained,  but  has  given  way  to  an  actual 
hostility,  the  fault  of  which  lies  mainly  at  the  door  of  the 
church :  "  Le  theologien  compromet  les  augustes  Veritas  dont  il 
est  le  depositaire  dans  une  lutte  impossible  avec  des  v^rites  moins 


■\ 


412  RENAISSANCE  OF  THEOLOGY. 

From  such  a  position  there  followed  naturally  a 
return  to  Latin  theology  in  all  its  details.  Start- 
ing from  the  same  premises  as  the  Latin  fathers  of 
the  second  century,  Newman  lived  over  again  in  his 
experience  the  course  of  Latin  history.  It  became 
gradually  more  evident  that  there  was  nothing  in 
Latin  Christianity  which  was  repugnant  to  his  mind. 
The  sacraments  appeared  again  as  the  conduits  of 
grace ;  the  soul  was  fed  from  without  by  supernatural 
influences  lodged  in  the  episcopate,  and  conveyed  to 
the  people  through  a  priesthood  receiving  its  divine 
consecration  in  the  sacrament  of  ordination.  He 
made  one  last  effort  to  harmonize  the  Latin  theology 
with  the  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England,  before 
he  recognized  where  his  logic  was  driving  him,  and,  in 
the  customary  phrase  of  ecclesiastical  circles,  trans- 
ferred his  adherence  to  the  Latin  obedience.  His  life 
has  been  a  parable  to  his  age.  Side  by  side  with  men 
who  had  attained  a  higher  view,  he  pursued  his  re- 

hautes,  mais  plus  saisissantes  et  plus  palpables.  La  science  phys- 
ique s'est  ainsi  constituee  en  dehors  de  la  religion  ;  par  cela 
meme  elle  est  devenue  impie.  La  science  est  coupable  d'avoir 
accept^  cet  exil  qui  I'eloignait  du  monde  moral  ;  elle  aurait  dii 
forcer  les  portes  du  sanctuaire  par  ses  supplications.  La  theo- 
logie  n'aurait  pu  lui  refuser  place  au  banquet  spirituel.  Wj 
vient-elle  pas  apporter  pour  ecot  mille  verites  sublimes  qui  pen- 
dent la  Providence  plus  manifeste,  tout  un  aspect  de  I'infini,  et 
comme  une  part  de  Dieu  lui-meme  retrouve  dans  la  Nature  I 
Osons  le  dire,  la  faute  premiere  est  a  la  theologie  ;  elle  a  pre- 
cede la  science,  elle  est  son  ancStre  logique  et  sa  mere  dans 
I'ordre  des  temps  ;  elle  aurait  dO  I'elever  dans  son  sein,  et  la 
nourrir  de  son  lait,  elle  I'a  repousee  de  I'Eglise  comme  une  autre 
Agar,  elle  I'a  rejetee  dans  le  desert  du  materialisme  et  les  nom- 
breuses  tribus  engendrees  d'Ismael  s'elevent  coutre  la  posterity 
legitime  d' Abraham."  —  De  Laprade,  La  Nature  avant  le  Chria^ 
tianisme,  p.  xcviL 


V 


NEWMAN,  PUSEY,   AND  KEBLE.  413 

actionary  way ;  what  to  them  was  as  light,  to  him  was 
as  darkness ;  he  began  with  skepticism  and  ended  by    ^ 
disowning  that  which  was  most  divine. 

There  were  other  elements  ^  in  the  Tractarian  move- 
ment than  that  which  was  represented  by  Newman, 
though  he  must  always  remain  its  most  logical  and 
consistent  exponent.  The  Latin  infusion  was  not  so 
strong  in  either  Pusey  or  Keble.  Pusey,  indeed,  be- 
lieved in  asserting  ecclesiastical  tradition  as  the  main 
defense  against  what  he  took  to  be  the  skepticism  of 
modern  thought.  As  with  Newman,  what  to  others 
appeared  as  a  divine  revelation  was  to  his  mind  a 
dangerous  infidelity.  A  recent  writer  has  said  of 
him,  that  "  his  religious  seriousness  was  the  condition 

^  The  current  of  the  Tractarian  movement  received  accessions 
from  various  minor  tributaries.  There  gravitated  naturally  to- 
war  J  it,  "  the  martyrs  of  disgust,"  as  they  have  been  so  aptly 
called,  who  were  repelled  by  what  seemed  to  them  the  vulgar 
familiarity  with  God  which  was  found  in  the  evangelical  school, 
whether  in  the  Church  of  England  or  among  the  Non-conformists. 
Here,  also,  at  the  root  of  the  disaffection,  may  be  traced  a  cer- 
tain "  blind  desire  "  to  realize  in  God  some  deeper,  more  mysteri- 
ous relationship  than  found  expression  in  the  type  of  piety  repre- 
sented by  Newton,  Scott,  or  Simeon.  Witness  the  language  of 
the  saintly  Faber,  who,  like  others,  disowned  with  a  bitter  con- 
tempt his  evangelical  antecedents:  "The  dreadful  facility  of 
turning  to  God  inculcated  there  (in  the  evangelical  school)  throws 
such  a  complete  mist  over  the  face  of  the  sacraments  that  it 
perverts  and  distorts  all  my  views  of  the  symmetry  of  the  scheme 
of  Redemption.  It  seems  as  if  I  could  never  get  free  from  the 
entanglements  of  that  base  theology.  However,  it  is  in  such 
difficulties  as  these  that  I  find  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  such 
an  inestimable  privilege.  There  I  cease  to  be  an  individual. 
I  seem  to  fall  into  my  own  place  quietly,  and  without  disturb- 
ance; and  the  noiseless  path  of  childlike  obedience,  slow  as  my 
progress  must  be,  here  a  little  and  there  a  little,  offers  a  calm 
and  peaceful  progress  of  spiritual  growth."  —  Faber's  Life  and 
Letters,  p.  72. 


414  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

of  one  who  not  only  believed,  but  was  penetrated  in 
his  whole  being  with  the  belief,  that  God  had  made 
\  a  communication  to  men."  ^  Such  also  was  the  pro- 
found conviction  of  Latin  theologians  from  the  time 
of  TertuUian.  It  might  have  been  said  of  Dr.  Pusey's 
great  contemporary,  the  late  Mr.  Maurice,  that  he 
was  only  asserting  another  phase  of  belief  among 
those  Catholic  fathers  whom  the  Tractarians  neglected, 
when  he  proclaimed  that  God  had  never  ceased  to 
make  a  communication  to  men ;  that  now,  as  always, 
He  revealed  Himself,  by  the  law  of  His  being,  in  the 
reason,  the  conscience,  the  experience  of  humanity. 
To  neither  Pusey  nor  Keble  was  it  given  to  read  this 
law  of  the  divine  life,  in  the  order  of  nature  or  in  the 
courses  of  history.  And  yet  they,  and  others  like 
them,  were  aspiring  for  a  higher  truth  than  they 
could  find  in  the  current  belief  of  Protestant  Chris- 
tendom. 

The  Church  of  England,  as  an  institution,  had 
hitherto  been  unmoved  by  the  influences  that  created 
the  evangelical  awakening  of  the  last  century.  If  a 
new  life  was  to  enter  the  Church  of  England,  it  must 
come  in  some  other  way.      The  popular  belief  that 

1  Rev.  E.  F.  Talbot,  Warden  of  Keble  College,  in  Fortnightly 
Review^  March,  1884.  He  also  remarks  :  "  There  was  a  passage 
in  the  Canon  concerning  preachers,  passed  in  the  very  synod 
which  imposed  the  thirty-nine  articles,  which  was  a  kind  of  locus 
classicus  with  the  Tractarians,  and  which  ran,  '  Let  them  teach 
nothing  in  sermons  .  .  .  except  what  is  agreeable  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  or  what  Catholic  fathers  and 
ancient  Bishops  have  gathered  from  the  same  doctrine.'  "  That 
there  might  be  any  divergence  of  a  decided  and  unportant  char- 
acter among  the  "  Catholic  fathers  "  which  affected  every  tenet 
of  the  received  theology,  was  a  fact  not  taken  into  considera- 
tion. 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE.     415 

God  acted  in  an  irregular,  spasmodic  manner,  as  in 
revivals,  by  occasional  effusions  of  grace,  was  repug- 
nant to  those  who  had  unconsciously  come  under  the 
influence  of  the  modem  principle,  —  that  the  spiritual 
life  is  part  of  an  eternal  order,  and  not  at  the  mercy 
of  the  transient  moods  of  the  soul.  The  doctrines  of 
apostolical  succession,  of  baptismal  regeneration,  and 
of  sacramental  grace,  seemed  to  the  minds  of  the 
leaders  in  the  Tractarian  movement  to  be  expressive 
of  a  divine  order,  —  a  divine  supply  to  human  needs, 
granted  in  no  fitful  way,  but  as  regular  in  its  action 
as  the  laws  in  accordance  with  which  planets  move. 
From  another,  and  that  a  higher  point  of  view,  these 
doctrines  were  but  symbols  of  an  order  which  included 
not  only  the  elect  in  the  Church  of  England,  or  its 
supposed  branches,  but  also  all  humanity,  —  the  law 
that  God  is  always  and  everywhere  seeking  to  impart 
Himself  to  human  souls,  employing  to  this  end  all 
the  events  and  circumstances  of  life.  Because  the 
Anglican  leaders  were  still  hampered  by  Augustinian 
or  Calvinistic  notions  of  election,  they  were  blind  to 
the  larger  scope  of  the  law  of  the  spiritual  life  ;  they 
were  forced  to  contradict  their  own  principle,  and  to 
hold  that,  in  the  case  of  the  vast  number  of  Protestant 
Christians  who  could  not  depend  upon  the  apostolical 
succession,  God  was  obliged  to  act  in  irregular  ways. 
Their  view  of  the  divine  life  was  too  narrow  in  its 
range  ;  it  shut  out  more  than  it  included  ;  it  implied, 
when  closely  examined,  irrationality  and  confusion.  • 
And  yet  with  all  its  defects  it  marks  an  advance ;  it 
shows  how  th^e  spirit  of  the  age  acts  even  upon  those 
who  set  themselves  to  resist  it. 

L     Of  the  Tractarian  movement  it  may  be  further  re- 
marked that,  in  its  theory  of  the  church,  there  was  a 


416  RENAISSANCE   OF   THEOLOGY. 

desire  to  escape  from  that  national  conception  of  the 
Church  of  England  which  isolated  it  from  the  larger 
outlying  life  of  Christendom.  The  leaders  of  the 
movement  separated  sharply  between  those  bodies  who 
had  the  so-called  apostolic  succession  and  those  who 
had  not ;  but  they  sought  to  overcome  the  effects  of 
the  principle  which  cut  them  off  from  fellowship  with 
their  Protestant  brethren,  by  tying  more  closely  to  the 
older  historic  churches,  in  which  the  succession  had 
been  preserved.  For  the  purposes  of  their  theory  it 
made  no  difference  that  their  advances  toward  fellow- 
ship with  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches  were  coldly, 
or  even  contemptuously  met.^     It  was  something  still 

^  How  the  Tractarian  idea  of  the  church,  which  was  only  the 
old  Latin  idea  rehabilitated,  was  received  by  the  Greek  church, 
has  been  shown  in  W.  Palmer's  Visit  to  the  Russian  Church,  lately 
edited  by  Cardinal  Newman.  In  the  Preface,  the  editor  sums 
up  the  result  of  this  labored  effort  to  get  the  Russo-Greek 
church  to  commit  itself  to  an  unwelcome  theory  :  "  Some  of 
their  highest  prelates  and  officials  go  out  of  their  way  to  deny 
altogether,  or  at  least  to  ignore  the  catholicity,  as  recognized  in 
the  creed,  as  if  their  time-honored  communion  was  but  a  revival 
of  the  ancient  Donatists.  They  say  virtually,  even  if  not  ex- 
pressly, we  know  nothing  about  unity,  nothing  about  catholicity; 
it  is  no  term  of  ours,"  etc.  But  let  one  of  these  high  officials 
speak  for  himself  :  "  It  (the  church)  seems  to  me  like  a  great 
sphere  revolving  round  the  sun.  All  the  different  churches  and 
sects  are  attracted  to  the  same  centre  and  revolve  around  the 
same  centre,  but  at  different  distances;  the  church  which  is 
simply  true  orthodox  and  catholic,  i.  e.,  the  Eastern,  being  the 
nearest,  and  being  joined  to  it  by  a  more  close  and  legitimate 
connection;  but  of  the  rest,  some  are  further  off,  some  nearer, 
without  there  being  any  distinct  separation  or  dijBPerence  in  kind." 
p.  271.  M.  Sidonsky,  a  professor  of  philosophy,  remarked, 
"  Nothing  has  forced  us  hitherto  to  consider  the  -question  of  the 
definition  of  the  Visible  Church.  When  our  circumstances  re- 
quire it,  it  will  no  doubt  be  examined."  p.  250.  Mr.  Palmer 
seems  to  have  gone  to  Russia  with  the  impression  that  its  church 


PRINCIPLE  OF  HISTORIC  CONTINUITY.      417 

to  be  able  to  feel,  in  accordance  with  the  notion  that 
now  began  to  prevail,  that  the  church  was  divided 
into  three  great  branches,  —  the  Greek,  the  Koman, 
and  the  Anglican,  although  by  some  dark  and  mys- 
terious dispensation  all  fellowship  between  them  was 
suspended. 

The  Church  of  England  was  reviving  its  spiritual 
life  by  a  law  of  its  own  constitution.  As  a  church, 
it  had  not  forgotten  its  historic  existence,  running 
back  through  the  ages.  It  resisted  the  efforts  of  hos- 
tile sects  to  make  it  become  like  one  of  them,  a  prod- 
uct of  the  Reformation.  Everywhere  were  visible 
the  landmarks  that  pointed  to  an  ancient  lineage.  Its 
cathedrals,  its  churches,  its  ritual,  its  order,  were  the 
product  of  a  piety  long  antecedent  to  the  revolution 
by  which  it  had  been  severed  from  its  fellowship  with 
Rome.  It  was  easy  for  the  leaders  of  the  Tractarian 
movement  to  accept  the  principle  that  the  continuity 
of  the  divine  action  upon  humanity  through  the  church 
had  never  been  broken.  Instead  of  that  feeling  which 
had  prevailed  in  the  eighteenth  century,  that  the  life 
of  the  church  before  the  Reformation  was  a  thing  to 
be  discarded  as  a  memory  of  shame  and  degradation, 
there  spread  the  conviction  that  the  church's  record  in 
history  might  be  recalled  with  a  sense  of  pride  and 
triumph.  In  the  historic  life  of  the  church  lay  the 
evidence  that  God  had  never  left  the  world  to  itself ; 
that  the  life  of  Christ  had  been  somehow  perpetuated 
in  the  life  of  the  ecclesiastical  organization. 

This  was,  indeed,  the   same  truth  which  Schleier- 

already  accepted  the  Latin  idea  of  catholicity,  and  with  the  pur- 
pose to  induce  it  also  to  accept  and  act  upon  the  Anglican  modifi- 
cation, known  as  the  branch  theory,  —  that  the  Catholic  church 
was  Greek,  Roman,  and  Anglican. 
27 


418  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

macher  had  proclaimed,  whose  reception  in  Germany- 
was  leading  to  a  revolution  in  the  methods  of  study- 
ing the  church's  history.  But  the  Tract arians  held  it 
with  limitations  which  weakened  or  perverted  its  true 
significance.  They  were  unable,  for  this  reason,  to 
discriminate  between  that  which  was  transient  or  pro- 
visiouBi  and  that  which  was  permanent.  They  confined 
themselves  mainly  to  a  study  of  Latin  theology  or  the 
revival  of  a  Latin  ritual,  oblivious  to  a  higher  theol- 
ogy with  a  better  lineage  than  that  which  descended 
through  Latin  Christendom.  Like  every  great  prin- 
ciple which  is  seized  with  rapture  by  the  imagination 
and  imperfectly  apprehended  by  the  reason,  the  doc- 
trine of  historical  continuity  was  so  presented  as  to 
lead  the  church  in  a  false  direction.  There  arose  a 
contempt  for  Protestantism  in  aU  its  forms,  for  its 
theology,  and  for  its  methods  of  cultivating  the  relig- 
ious life.  Men  talked  of  the  historical  continuity  of/ 
the  Church  of  England,  but  there  was  one  ugly  fact  , 
in  its  history  which  they  wished  might  be  blotted  out, 
—  that  it  had  been  implicated  in  the  disgraceful,  so-  ' 
called,  reforms  of  the  sixteenth  century.  There  was 
a  continuity  in  the  life  of  Christendom,  but  they  could 
not  conceive  it  as  including  a  Luther,  a  Zwingle,  or  a 
Calvin.  Hence  the  tendency  to  Latinize  the  Church 
of  England,  to  make  it  a  mere  satellite  of  the  Church 
of  Rome,  which  had  been  the  unconscious  purpose  of 
Newman  in  the  days  of  his  greatest  influence,  still  con- 
tinued to  operate,  carrying  back  to  the  fold  of  Rome 
hundreds  of  its  clergy  and  thousands  of  its  laity. 

The  presentation  of  the  principle  of  historical  con- 
tinuity, as  apprehended  by  Newman  or  Pusey  or 
Keble,  was  indeed  absurd  and  self-contradictory.  To 
talk  of    the  continuous   incarnation  of  Christ  in  the 


THE  IDEA    OF  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION.     419 

world  as*  dependent  upon  "  apostolic  succession,"  or 
the  communication  of  the  life  of  God  to  the  soul,  as 
involved  in  the  validity  of  sacraments  administered 
by  those  who  have  been  episcopally  ordained,  carries 
with  it  its  own  condemnation.  As  one  takes  a  look  at 
things  as  they  are,  its  falsity  is  manifest  enough  with- 
out any  serious  refutation.  But  obsolete  beliefs  like 
these  revived  in  the  nineteenth  century  may  yet  have 
served  a  different  purpose  or  led  in  a  different  direc- 
tion than  when  first  announced  by  TertuUian  or  Cyp- 
rian. The  drift  of  the  age  and  its  counter-currents 
must  be  taken  into  consideration  as  forces  which 
modify  all  statements  of  truth.  Such  beliefs  may 
even  tend  to  reflect  the  larger  spirit  which  dominates 
the  time  when  they  reappear;  they  may  be  efforts 
even  to  give  it  expression,  taking  this  shape  as  the 
most  convenient  clothing  in  which  to  present  them- 
selves to  the  popular  mind.  Some  living  truth  may 
be  incased  in  a  mouldering  husk  which  is  unsightly 
and  repulsive,  —  a  great  reality  be  implied  beneath  a 
teaching  which,  in  its  literal  form,  seems  like  a  gro- 
tesque caricature  of  Christ's  religion.  The  idea  of 
apostolical  succession  may  be  interpreted  as  a  testi- 
mony of  the  human  conscience  to  the  belief  that 
God  is  a  God  of  order  and  not  of  confusion.  Its 
preservation  in  the  church  for  eighteen  centuries  — 
admitting  the  fact  for  the  sake  of  the  argument  — 
may  testify  to  the  vitality  of  ecclesiastical  institutions 
as  surviving  through  all  the  changes  of  society,  the 
dissolution  and  fall  of  empires,  through  calamities  so 
great  that  they  threaten  to  wipe  away  all  traces  of 
civilization.  The  emphasis  laid  upon  the  exact  form 
in  which  the  sacraments  are  to  be  administered,  while 
concealing,  or  even  distorting,  their  significance,  may 


420  RENAISSANCE  OF  THEOLOGY, 

be  a  testimony  to  the  truth  that  the  spiritual  life  is 
part  of  an  eternal  order  based  upon  a  law  which 
knows  no  exception ;  that  the  relationship  of  man  to 
God  is  an  immutable  fact,  not  dependent  upon  the 
passing  phases  of  depression  or  exhilaration  which 
mark  the  emotions.  Whatever  men  may  have  thought 
or  still  think  of  the  sacraments,  however  materialistic 
or  superstitious  the  notions  which  obscure  their  mean- 
ing, they  still  remain  to  all  in  the  ages  of  illumination 
or  the  ages  of  darkness,  whether  men  can  read  or  are 
too  illiterate  to  do  so,  they  remain  the  two  great  sym- 
bols, the  two  instructive  monuments  of  Christianity, 
pointing  to  an  actual  relationship  with  God.  Bap- 
tism is  the  witness  to  a  divine  power  which  purifies 
from  sin  ;  the  Lord's  Supper  testifies  to  the  incarnate 
Word  as  forever  giving  Himself  to  the  soul,  to  the 
communication  of  the  divine  life  to  the  human  spirit, 
the  eternal  reason  to  human  thought. 

The  Tractarian  school  refused  to  read  the  lesson 
which  the  French  Revolution  so  impressively  taught. 
Its  leaders  distrusted  the  instincts  of  humanity  ;  they 
feared  the  reason  as  a  dangerous  possession  ;  they 
sought  to  restore  the  priesthood  as  it  ruled  in  the 
ages  when  men  could  not  think  for  themselves,  as  it 
had  impersonated  the  conscience  when  the  conscience 
could  find  no  other  utterance.  The  overthrow  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  church  in  France  micrht  have  shown 
them  that  if  humanity  is  to  receive  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  it  must  be  because  there  is  an  inward  aptitude 
for  its  reception,  not  because  it  is  imparted  on  some 
external  authority.  Here  lay  the  weakness  of  the 
Anglican  revival  in  the  hour  of  its  birth,  that  it  dared 
not  trust  the  divine  constitution  of  man.  There  was 
no  recognition  of  the  truth  that  the  incarnation  was 


MANSEVS  BAMPTON  LECTURES.  421 

the  light  of  the  eternal  reason  addressing  itself  to  the 
reason  in  man  as  akin  to  its  own  essential  nature.  It 
was  this  distrust  which  vitiated  its  scholarship  and 
the  value  of  its  patristic  learning.^  It  showed  no 
love  of  truth  for  its  own  sake'.  The  study  of  the  past '' 
was  undertaken  in  order  to  confirm  a  foregone  and  \ 
erroneous  conclusion.  History  was  written  on  the 
principle  which  throws  out  pamphlets  in  a  time  of 
confusion  with  their  special  pleading  for  some  par- 
tisan purpose. 

The  skepticism  which  lurked  beneath  the  Augustin- 
ian  and  Calvinistic  theologies  is  also  to  be  seen  in  the 
Tractarian  movement.  It  is  implied  in  its  very  atti- 
tude of  disowning  the  reason,  of  seeking  refuge  in  some 
remote,  obscure  principle  of  external  authority  which 
the  reason  is  forbidden  to  examine.  The  Tractarian 
reaction  may  be  said  to  have  culminated  as  a  move- 
ment in  thought,  when  Professor  Mansel,  in  his  Bamp- 

1  "  The  Tractarian  movement,"  says  Tulloch,  "  was  in  no  sense 
a  scientific  movement.  It  threw  no  light  on  theological  or  scien- 
tific difficulties.  It  travestied  rather  than  studied  church  history, 
and  instead  of  seeking  to  explain  its  great  epochs,  it  made  a  mere 
polemical  quarry  of  them  for  the  support  of  foregone  conclusions. 
It  scouted  the  idea  of  new  light;  its  pride  was  to  reproduce  old 
traditions  and  *  Catholic '  dogmas.  It  not  only  held  no  key  to 
the  great  movements  of  Christian  thought  in  the  past,  but  it 
blundered  over  the  simplest  of  them,  as  Cardinal  Newman  did 
so  notably  in  the  history  of  the  Arians  of  the  fourth  century. 
What  may  be  said  to  be  now  a  commonplace  in  all  historical 
inquiry,  that  every  great  epoch  in  the  formation  of  opinion  is  the 
product  of  all  the  forces  operating  in  the  preceding  time,  and 
therefore  so  far  justified  in  the  very  fact  of  its  existence,  —  that 
it  is  a  living  growth  in  short,  and  not  a  mechanical  manipulation 
of  parties,  —  was  never  realized  by  them.  They  took  their  stand 
on  an  imaginary  platform  of  their  own,  which  they  identified 
with  Christian  antiquity." 


422  RENAISSANCE  OF  THEOLOGY. 

ton  Lectures  on  the  "  Limits  of  Religious  Thought," 
attempted  to  defend  on  a  philosophical  basis  the  skep- 
tical principle  that  God  was  the  unknown  and  the 
unknowable.  In  the  name  of  orthodoxy  he  boldly- 
avowed  what  has  since  been  designated  as  Agnosti- 
cism. In  theology,  as  in  philosophy,  the  difficulties 
which  beset  the  human  mind  in  its  effort  to  find 
out  God  were  to  his  mind  insoluble.  Since  even  to 
think  of  God  implied  irreconcilable  contradictions  in 
the  very  nature  of  thought,  religion  must  rest  upon 
some  other  authority  than  the  reason.  The  true  atti- 
tude of  reason  toward  things  divine  is  that  of  simple 
acquiescence  in  what  purports  to  be  an  authoritative 
revelation.  Like  Calvin,  whom  in  his  formal  theology 
he  so  closely  followed,  he  maintained  that  revelation 
is  a  purely  regulative  affair.  Whether  God  has  re- 
vealed to  us  His  inmost  nature  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing.  He  has  imparted  what  He  wills  that  man 
should  receive.  Mr.  Mansel  accepted  the  methods  of 
Kant  in  demonstrating  that  such  a  Deity  as  the  popu- 
lar mind  had  been  taught  to  receive  was  impossible  to 
the  reason.  Of  the  two  alternatives,  that  of  retaining 
the  lower  conception  of  God  in  defiance  of  the  reason, 
or  of  rising  to  a  higher  conception  in  harmony  with 
the  reason,  he  chose  the  former,  falling  back  upon 
some  supposed  external  authority  for  its  support.  He 
rejected  the  intuitional  theology,  as  he  called  it,  assert- 
ing the  necessity  for  traditional  dogmas  which  the 
higher  development  of  the  conscience  had  outgrown, 
because  they  seemed  to  him,  without  inquiry  into  their 
origin  or  meaning,  to  form  a  part  of  that  authorita- 
tive revelation  which  man  was  bound  to  receive  even 
in  defiance  of  his  reason.  The  controversy  which  took 
place  between  him  and  Mr.  Maurice,  in  which  the  lat« 


MAURICE'S  ''WHAT  IS  REVELATION?*'       423 

ter  called  attention  to  the  question,  "  What  is  revela- 
tion," is  perhaps  the  most  significant  one  in  the  whole 
history  of  the  church  since  Athanasius  stood  up  to 
resist  the  Arians  on  a  similar,  if  not  the  same  iden- 
tical issue. 

^  The  ecclesiastical  reaction  which  was  led  by  New- 
man in  England  was  felt  throughout  all  Christendom. 
The  same  desire  "  to  hurl  back  the  aggressive  forces 
of  the  human  intellect,"  was  manifested  in  the  church 
of  Rome,  in  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  churches, 
whether  on  the  continent,  in  England,  or  America, 
wherever  Christian  thought  was  still  resting  on  its 
old  basis.  Tractarianism,  Romanticism,  Ritualism, 
Millenarianism,  all  the  theologies  of  fear  and  despair 
arose  to  contest  the  larger  truth.  It  is  now  fifty  years 
since  Newman  arose  with  his  "  fierce  thoughts  against 
a  liberalism  that  was  invading  the  church."  Two 
generations  of  men  have  passed  away  while  the  con- 
flict has  been  going  on  between  the  advocates  of  a 
higher  theology  and  a  larger  faith,  and  those  who 
were  bent  on  maintaining  Christianity  as  it  had  been 
handed  down  in  Latin  tradition.  With  the  third  gen- 
eration, as  Isaac  Taylor  was  fond  of  remarking,  there 
comes  a  change  of  outlook. 

As  we  review  the  history  of  the  ecclesiastical  re- 
action, which  now  shows  signs  of  having  spent  its 
force,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  crusade  against  the  hu- 
man reason,  in  which  Newman  was  a  leading  represen- 
tative, has  not  been  successful.  The  free  investigation 
which  he  deprecated  in  dread  of  its  tendencies  and 
results  has  been  carried  on  with  unabated  ardor.  If 
there  is  danger  from  its  activity,  it  is  because  the  flood 
of  light  may  bewilder  us,  which  has  been  thrown  upon 


424  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

the  Bible,  upon  the  history  of  the  church,  upon  the 
ways  of  God  in  revealing  Himself  to  the  human 
spirit.  The  time  is  ripe  for  quiet  reflection  upon  the 
results  which  have  been  achieved.  What  the  ase  now 
demands  is  the  enforcement  of  the  principles  for  which 
the  reason  has  been  furnishing  the  materials  in  super- 
abundant measure.  The  effort  to  repress  the  reason 
has  come  too  late  in  the  world's  history  to  attain  suc- 
cess. The  tide  of  things  is  setting  more  and  more 
strongly  against  ecclesiastical  obscurantism.  Even 
reactions  against  the  reason  are  lifted  up  into  a 
higher  sphere,  and  serve  the  cause  of  God  against 
their  will.  We  owe  another  debt  to  Newman  and  to 
Mansel,  than  those  we  generally  acknowledge.  The 
one  has  shown  in  a  typical  way,  which  has  had  no 

4  such  illustration  since  the  conversion  of  Augustine, 
how  distrust  of  the  reason  must  logically  end  in  ac- 
knowledging an  infallible  pope  ;  the  other  in  his  chiv- 
alric  attempt  to  defend  the  traditional  dogmas  or  to 
overcome  the  Germanism,  as  he  called  it,  which  was 
infecting  the  church,  could  accomplish  his  purpose 
only  by  cutting  away  the  foundations  on  which  the 
possibility  of  a  revelation  rests.  These  instances  teach 
us  anew  that  modern  Christianity  is  committed  to 
progress  and  grov/th  in  the  knowledge  of  God  and  of 

->{  His  revelation.  If  it  is  dangerous  to  advance,  it  is 
only  more  dangerous  to  retreat.  The  human  reason 
I  at  last  is  free,  and  is  increasingly  realizing  what  free- 
/  dom  means.  Christianity  must  now  trust,  as  indeed 
it  is  trusting,  to  its  own  merits  for  its  vindication  to 
the  reason.  It  must  stand  or  fall  as  it  can  show  itself 
to  be  true. 

The  term  reaction,  when  applied  to  the  movement 
we  have  been  considering,  may  mean  that  there  are 


SIGNIFICANCE  OF  REACTIONS.  425 

neglected  aspects  of  truth  which  need  to  be  reasserted. 
j  A  reactioD  is,  as  it  were,  a  check  applied  to  the  wheels 
I  of  progress  lest  it  go  too  rapidly  for  the  good  of  all. 
In  every  reaction  there  is  a  backward  look,  as  if  be- 
fore the  church  committed  itself  to  a  great  advance,  it 
were  necessary  to  take  a  careful  survey  of  the  past,  in 
order  that  nothing  which  is  true  should  be  left  behind. 
The  church,  like  the  world,  possesses  a  conservative 
spirit,  requiring  that  every  step  forward  be  carefully 
tested,  offering  an  opposition,  which,  despite  its  blind- 
ness or  irrationalism,  serves  the  cause  of  truth  by  be- 
coming its  foe.  It  has  been  among  the  advantages  of 
the  reaction  of  the  nineteenth  century,  that  it  has 
served  to  preserve  a  home  for  those  who  were  not  pre- 
pared for  the  advance.  It  has  done  also  a  great  ser- 
vice to  the  cause  of  theology  by  keeping  before  us  the 
life  of  the  past  in  such  a  vivid  and  living  way  that  aU 
that  was  true  and  enduring  in  the  ages  that  are  gone 
is  still  before  our  eyes  to  be  read  and  interpreted.  In 
this  way  it  has  also  clarified  our  vision  by  revealing 
the  concrete  evils  that  obstruct  the  reception  of  the 
larger  thought.  It  has  illustrated  impressively  the 
)  truth  which  Schleiermacher  taught,  that  the  church 
'  as  the  fellowship  of  men  under  the  consciousness  of  a 
relationship  to  God  is  essential  to  human  salvation  in 
its  truest  sense.  It  has  again  borne  witness  by  the  re- 
vival of  Christian  activities,  that  such  a  church  alive  to 
its  social  obligations  is  the  strongest  evidence  of  the 
incarnation  of  Christ. 


426  RENAISSANCE  OF  THEOLOGY, 

V. 

The  representative  process  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury in  its  spiritual  history  has  been  the  transition 
from  the  deistic  conception  of  a  God  outside  of  the 
universe  to  the  Christian  idea  of  God  as  indwelling 
in  His  creation.  It  has  been  a  process  illustrated  in 
the  mental  history  of  every  religious  thinker  who  has 
been  seeking  for  a  larger  and  truer  theology.  It  is  a 
process  which  may  be  studied  in  its  various  degrees  of 
completeness.  With  some  it  has  been  so  imperfectly 
apprehended  as  to  lead  to  merely  negative  results. 
They  have  rejected  the  traditional  view  of  Deity  which 
has  been  so  long  identified  with  Latin  or  with  Protest- 
ant theology,  but  they  have  assumed  that,  in  the  nature 
of  the  case,  there  could  be  nothing  to  take  its  place. 
They  have  professed  themselves  atheists,  rejoicing  to 
believe  that  there  is  no  God,  or  have  called  themselves 
agnostics,  maintaining  that  if  there  be  a  God  He  can- 
not be  known.  They  have  sought  for  substitutes  for 
the  discarded  belief,  such  as  the  worship  of  humanity, 
thinking  to  find  in  it  an  ideal  worthy  of  their  highest 
devotion.  Others  still,  after  struggling  to  reduce  to 
some  intelligible  objective  form  the  vague  intuitions, 
as  they  deem  them,  by  which  they  have  obtained 
glimpses  of  a  higher  truth,  have  renounced  it  all  as 
unprofitable  and  vain,  falling  back  to  the  old  idea, 
despite  the  protest  of  the  reason,  in  order  to  obtain  a 
"  definite  faith "  by  which  they  may  live  and  train 
their  children.  We  hear  impressive  voices  warning 
us  of  the  danger  of  advance  or  sounding  the  note  of 
retreat.^     As  the  century  draws  toward  its  close,  which 

*  The  following  may  be  taken  as  a  representative  utterance  : 
**  Quand  il  est  bien  etabli  que  Dieu  n'est  pas  immanent,  mele  au 


A   SOURCE  OF  WEAKNESS,  421 

opened  with  a  boundless  prospect  whose  beauty  thrilled 
the  soul,  the  intellectual  confusion  seems  to  have  in- 
creased rather  than  abated,  —  a  state  of  things  from 
which  the  ecclesiastical  reaction  continues  to  profit. 

There  must  be  some  hidden  weakness  or  defect  in 
what  we  call  our  modern  theology  which  accounts  for 
what  seems  to  many  its  failure  to  make  good  the  place 
of  what  has  been  rejected.  The  intellectual  confusion 
is  no  sign,  it  is  true,  of  failure ;  it  may  be  also  viewed 
as  the  necessary  condition  of  progress.  But  it  is  not 
a  state  of  things  whose  permanence  is  desirable.  It 
certainly  becomes  us  to  labor  for  its  removal. 

It  is  by  reverting  again  to  Schleiermacher's  atti- 
tude in  theology  that  we  may  discover  one  source  of 
the  weakness  which  embarrasses  our  progress.  He 
grounded  religion  in  the  feelings,  or  the  deep  instincts 
and  sentiments  of  our  nature.  He  used  his  great 
dialectic  power  within  certain  limits  to  interpret  the 
feelings  in  the  language  of  the  intellect.  But  he 
paused  at  the  idea  of  God  ;  Deity  he  maintained  was 
incomprehensible,  except  through  the  feeling ;  only 
through  the  pious  affection  could  the  Infinite  and  the- 
Eternal  one  be  known.^     His  idea  of  God  remained 

monde,  tout  peril  de  malentendu  grave  est  ecarte.  .  .  .  Revenous 

k  ces  simples  expressions  de  la  vieille  metaphysique,  pour  designer 
Dieu:  la  premiere  Cause,  I'Etre  des  etres,  en  y  ajoutant  I'at- 
tribut  qui  determine  le  mieux  son  rapport  avec  le  monde,  I'intel- 
ligence."  —  Caro,  L'lde'e  de  Dieu,  pp.  386,  387. 

1  It  is  common  to  hear  Schleiermacher,  as  also  Coleridge, 
Hegel,  and  others,  spoken  of  as  pantheists.  The  term,  however, 
has  never  been  defined.  It  was  generated  in  the  deistic  atmos- 
phere of  the  last  century,  and  was  applied  to  those  who  dissented 
from  the  mechanical  notion  of  God  as  the  distant  architect  of  the 
universe.  It  seems  also  to  have  been  regarded,  and  quite  natu- 
rally, as  equivalent  to  atheistical.    Bayle,  for  example,  charges 


428  RENAIS.SANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

in  consequence  incomplete  and  unsatisfactory ;  it  may 
have  met  a  certain  transitory  demand  when  the  mind 
was  escaping  from  a  notion  of  personality  which  limited 
the  Divine  being  after  some  inferior  anthropomorphic 
conception  ;  but  it  was  no  final  resting-place  for  the 
heart  or  the  reason.  The  thought  about  God  must 
control  all  other  thought.  If  our  idea  of  Him  be  so 
vague  or  imperfect  that  it  can  find  no  expression  in 
language,  or  if  the  attempt  to  find  some  approximate 
expression  is  forbidden  as  undertaking  the  impossible, 
then  uncertainty  and  vacillation  will  be  apt  to  attach 
to  all  the  results  of  religious  inquiry.  The  appeal  to 
the  feelings,  as  that  consciousness  in  man  by  which  all 
truth  is  attested,  may  be  the  necessary  beginning  of  a 
great  era  in  religious  history,  but  to  stop  with  the  feel- 
ings is  to  disown  another  part  of  our  nature  which 
imperatively  demands  that  it  shall  not  be  sacrificed.^ 

Spinoza  with  having  introduced,  not  pantheism,  but  atheism,  into 
theology.  The  term  seems  to  have  been  first  used  by  Toland, 
who  applied  it  to  himself.  It  is  a  word  still  associated  in  the 
minds  of  many  with  the  opprobrium  of  a  deistic  antipathy,  but 
it  is  also  used  in  another  and  a  higher  sense.  What  its  future 
destiny  may  be  is  still  uncertain.  See  article  Pantheismus,  iu 
Herzog,  Real-EncyHopddie. 

1  A  recent  writer,  speaking  of  what  is  called  the  "  New  The- 
ology," remarks  :  "  But  the  new  theology  will  not  be  wise  above 
what  is  written.  The  fundamental  facts  of  revealed  religion  are 
received  in  their  simplicity.  Theories  about  the  application  of 
the  facts  to  the  spiritual  needs  of  men  are  not  formulated. 
Thus,  we  are  agreed  upon  the  truth  that  *  God  was  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  unto  himself; '  but  we  do  not  attempt  to 
unravel  the  interior  workings  of  the  divine  nature,  that  clothes 
the  man  of  Nazareth  with  the  habiliments  of  the  superhuman. 
In  like  manner,  the  doctrine  of  the  trinity  is  accepted  for  its 
practical  worth,  as  a  revelation  of  the  many-sidedness  of  God ; 
while  all  endeavors  to  define  the  doctrine,  on  the  basis  of  tri- 
personality,  are  abandoned  to  those  ingenious  persons  who  are 


SCHLEIERMACHER'S  DEFICIENCY.        429 

The  appeal  to  the  feelings  or  instincts  is  made  in  order 
to  gather  fresh  materials  for  the  use  of  the  reason. 
Even  if  the  mind  fail  to  do  justice  to  the  whole  con- 
tent of  the  consciousness  of  humanity,  as  it  is  dis- 
closed in  history,  it  is  still  bound  to  make  the  effort, 
and  to  continue  to  repeat  it,  notwithstanding  succes- 
sive failures. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  nineteenth  century  resem- 
bles more  closely  the  age  that  gave  birth  to  Greek 
theology  than  any  intervening  *  age  in  history.  The 
comparison  holds  true  in  some  respects  to  which  at- 
tention should  be  emphatically  called.  Schleiermacher 
closely  resembled,  both  in  his  general  attitude  as  well 
as  in  the  principles  he  set  forth,  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria, the  great  founder  of  Greek  theology.  But 
the  age  of  Clement  was  succeeded  by  that  of  Origen 
and  Athanasius,  when  new  conditions  required  that 
just  that  which  Clement  had  left  undetermined  should 
be  definitely  expressed  if  the  truth  of  the  incarnation 
was  to  be  retained  as  the  one  all-important,  all-inclusive 
idea  which  gave  unity  to  human  thought,  or  made  the 
history  of  mankind  intelligible.  Schleiermacher,  in 
consequence  of  the  deficiency  of  his  thought  regarding 
God,  illustrated  again  the  process  of  thought  in  the 

fond  of  enigmas."  What  is  it  that  is  written,  unless  it  be  upon 
the  human  reason,  which  is  an  integral  part  of  our  spiritual  na- 
ture ?  Why  should  we  not,  if  we  are  made  in  God's  own  image, 
attempt  to  unravel  the  interior  workings  of  the  divine  nature  ? 
If  we  have  abandoned  the  traditional  misconception  of  the 
trinity,  why  must  we  be  forbidden  to  define  the  doctrine  in  some 
truer  formula  ?  Is  the  use  of  reason  in  religion  to  be  confined 
to  those  ingenious  persons  who  are  fond  of  enigmas  ?  And  what 
difference  is  there  in  principle  between  such  an  attitude  in  the- 
ology and  that  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church  which  disowns  the 
reason  as  dangerous  ? 


430  RENAISSANCE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

ancient  church  in  his  disposition  to  adopt  what  was 
called  Sabellianism,^  of  which  it  may  be  sufficient  to 
say  that  its  tendency  was  to  destroy  the  historic  reality 
of  the  life  of  Christ,  and  thus  eventually  to  return, 
like  Arianism,  to  the  deistic  conception  of  God. 

But,  in  another  respect,  the  resemblance  between 
our  own  age  and  the  early  church  is  a  striking  one. 
Once  more  in  history  we  are  confronted  by  the  same 
problem  with  which  the  Greek  fathers  were  occupied, 
and  in  substantially  the  same  form.  Like  the  Greek 
philosophers  of  the  Neo-Platonic  school,  they  aimed  to 
reconcile  the  idea  of  the  divine  immanence,  which  had 
been  the  groundwork  of  all  their  culture,  with  the  idea 
which  was  then  invading  the  sphere  of  thought  as  well 
as  of  religion,  that  God  was  outside  of  the  world,  ex- 
isting in  solitude  and  passivity  apart  from  the  crea- 
tion. The  process  of  reconciliation  between  these  two 
conceptions  of  Deity,  neither  of  which  would  give 
way  to  the  other,  was  begun  by  Origen  and  completed 
by  Athanasius  in  the  doctrine  of  the  trinity,  accord- 
ing to  which  transcendent  Deity,  as  the  eternal  Father, 
the  mysterious  background  or  abyss  of  all  existence, 
is  united  by  a  holy  and  infinite  Spirit  with  immanent 
Deity  —  the  eternal  Son  by  whom  and  for  whom  all 
things  were  made  and  in  whom  all  things  consist,  who 
in  the  fullness  of  time  became  flesh  and  dwelt  amongst 
us,  the  glory  of  the  invisible  Father,  full  of  grace  and 
truth.  The  problem  is  the  same  for  us,  but  we  ap- 
proach it  in  history  in  our  own  way.  Then  the  idea 
of  immanent  Deity  was  already  beginning  to  fade  out 
of  the  consciousness ;  now  it  is  slowly  returning  after 
centuries  of  abeyance.  We  bring  with  us  a  conviction 
of  the  divine  transcendence  which  has  been  the  basis 
1  See  ante,  p.  76. 


HEGEL   SUCCEEDS  SCHLEIERMACHER.     431 

of  thouglit  and  experience  through  so  many  generar,^  vv^ 
tions,  both  in  Latin  and  Protestant  Christendom,  that  ^  v>^ 
to  escape  from  it  is  impossible,  and  we  seek  to  recon-  /^a^^^ 
cile  with  it  the  conviction  of  the  immanence  of  God,  /  Py 
which  is  enforced  upon  us  by  the  deeper  utterances 
of  the  consciousness,  by  all  that  is  highest  in  the  re- 
searches of  modern  life,  whether  in  history,  in  science, 
in  art,  in  philosophy,  or  in  religion. 

Hegel  was  Schleiermacher's  successor  in  the  order 
of  thought,  although  contemporaneous  with  him  in 
the  order  of  time.  He  was  the  continuator  in  the 
modern  church  of  the  mystic  succession  to  whose  rep- 
resentatives John  Scotus,  Eckart,  and  Bohme,  he 
acknowledged  his  relationship.  But  his  system  goes 
back  for  its  fundamental  principle  to  Origen  and 
Athanasius.  The  statement  of  Hegel  may  differ  in  ! 
form  from  that  of  ancient  Greek  theology,  but  it  is 
the  same  thing  in  its  essential  principle.  His  idea  of 
Deity  going  forth  out  of  Himself  in  order  to  return 
again  in  a  seK-conscious  process  through  the  media- 
tion of  the  spirit  is  not  essentially  different  from  Ori- 
gen's  doctrine  of  the  "  eternal  generation  of  the  Son," 
upon  which  Athanasius  stood  when  he  announced  the 
Christian  formula  of  the  trinity.  If,  according  to 
the  belief  to  which  the  church  is  committed,  God  ex- 
ists in  the  triune  distinction  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost,  then  this  distinction  must  underlie  all  thought 
or  experience  of  His  presence  and  operations  in  the 
world.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  Latin  theology 
that  it  formally  accepted  the  doctrine  of  the  trinity, 
and  then  reasoned  about  God  on  an  Arian  or  deistic 
basis,  as  if  the  trinity  were  a  sort  of  accidental  attach- 
ment to  His  essence,  to  be  used  for  a  Deus  ex  machina 
as  occasion  demanded.     The  same  was  true  of  Calvin 


432  RENAISSANCE   OF   THEOLOGY. 

and  his  successors.  The  clear  vision  of  the  eighteenth 
century  rejected  such  a  trinity,  which  seemed  to  have 
no  organic  relationship  to  the  outer  world  or  to  the 
life  of  man.  Hegel  stands  for  the  restoration  of  the 
Athanasian  or  Nicene  formula,  as  having  its  ground  in 
the  reason,  which  is  also  the  vehicle  of  revelation,  — 
as  the  one  essential  truth  in  philosophy  or  in  theology, 
without  which  we  are  unable  to  elicit  the  meaning  of 
nature  or  the  course  of  human  history.^ 

*  The  history  of  theology  in  England,  so  far  as  it  has  been  in- 
fluenced by  Coleridge  and  by  Maurice  who  was  his  disciple,  has 
been  guided  by  the  principle  of  Hegel  rather  than  that  of  Schlei- 
ermacher.  Coleridge  in  his  early  life,  while  still  under  the  in- 
fluence of  eighteenth  century  traditions,  became  a  Unitarian 
minister.  But  acquaintance  with  Schelling's  philosophy,  which 
is  akin  in  its  theological  bearings  to  Hegelianism,  led  him  to  see 
the  larger  relationships  of  the  trinity  to  human  reason  as  well 
as  human  life,  so  that  a  doctrine  which  had  seemed  to  him 
irrational  or  absurd  from  the  stand-point  of  deism,  became  of 
vital  importance  in  his  maturer  thought.  In  this  respect  Cole- 
ridge hp,s  been  followed  by  Maurice,  the  greatest  of  modem  Eng- 
lish theologians.  He,  too,  fought  his  way  through  the  repre- 
sentative struggle  of  the  age,  —  from  deism  to  the  Christian  idea 
of  God.  The  application  of  the  doctrine  of  the  trinity  to  the 
spiritual  needs  of  man,  or  as  the  clew  to  the  interpretation  of 
human  history,  may  be  said  to  constitute  the  substance  of  Mau- 
rice's theology.  More  than  any  other  modern  theologian  was 
he  in  accord  with  the  fundamental  principle  of  Hegel.  It  is  this 
which  explains  his  obscurity  to  those  not  yet  emancipated  from 
deistic  notions,  or  who  regard  the  trinity  as  an  attachment  to 
the  idea  of  God,  to  which  justice  has  been  done  in  acknowledg- 
ing it  as  a  Catholic  tradition.  It  is  strange  that  Maurice  should 
have  given  so  little  attention  to  the  one  man  whose  philosoph- 
ical thought  he  reproduced  in  its  practical  and  religious  bear- 
ings. 

The  life  of  Maurice,  lately  published,  brings  out  one  fact  of  con- 
siderable importance,  namely,  that  he  thought  English  theology 
must  always  remain  different  from  German,  because  it  started 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF   THE   TRINITY,        433 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  Hegel  has  been  discredited 
in  his  own  country,  that  his  philosophy  has  been  shat- 
tered into  fragment s.i  It  may  be  that  the  details  of 
the  system  as  expounded  by  the  master  must  undergo 
revision.  It  may  be  that  a  further  preliminary  process 
is  necessary  before  the  full  significance  of  his  prin- 
ciples can  be  generally  discerned.  There  is  still  much 
to  be  done  in  fields  which  Hegel  did  not  exhaust  be- 
fore an  intelligent  assent  or  denial  can  be  given  to  his 
generalizations.  He  lived  in  an  age  when  the  mate- 
rials were  collecting  for  a  great  ecclesiastical  reaction, 
the  spirit  of  which  was  also  affecting  other  depart- 
ments of  inquiry  than  theology.     It  may  be  for  these 

from  a  different  principle  and  followed  a  different  method.  Cf. 
i.  p.  2o3.  "  Bunsen's  book  on  the  Church  of  the  future  taught 
me  clearly  what  I  had  suspected  before,  that  every  earnest  Ger- 
man must  begin  with  the  Spirit,  that  he  may  come  to  learn  some- 
thing of  the  Father  and  the  Son.  I  am  as  certain  as  I  can  be  of 
anything,  that  our  process  is  the  opposite  one,  that  we  must  begin 
from  the  Father  in  order  that  we  may  know  something  of  the 
Son  and  of  the  Spirit."  See,  also,  ii.  p.  468.  "We  (English 
and  Germans)  must  be  to  a  considerable  extent  unintelligible  to 
each,  because  we  start  from  exactly  opposite  points  ;  we,  nat- 
urally, from  that  which  is  above  us  and  speaks  to  us  ;  they, 
naturally,  from  that  which  is  within  them  and  wliich  seeks  for 
some  object  above  itself.  ...  I  am  most  anxious  to  assert  the 
worth  of  our  English  position,  to  prove  that  truth  must  look 
down  upon  us,  if  we  would  look  up  to  it  ;  that  Truth  must  be  a 
person  seeking  us,  if  we  are  to  seek  him."  But  this  distinction 
may  be  said  to  also  mark  the  difference  between  Schleiermacher 
and  Hegel. 

^  "  For  any  one  whose  view  is  not  limited  by  words  or  super- 
ficial appearances,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that,  in  the  scientific 
life  of  Germany  as  of  other  countries,  there  is  no  greater  power 
at  present  than  Hegelianism,  especially  in  all  that  relates  to  met- 
aphysics and  ethics,  to  the  philosophy  of  history  and  of  religion." 
—  Professor  Caird,  in  his  Sketch  of  Hegel. 
28 


434  RENAISSANCE   OF   THEOLOGY, 

among  other  reasons  that  the  religious  thought  of  the 
age  seems  to  have  halted  for  a  moment  as  if  realizing 
the  mighty  change  which  the  full  acceptance  of  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  trinity  involves.  A  great 
position  like  this  is  not  taken  without  many  defeats 
and  many  successive  assaults  on  the  citadels  of  tradi- 
tion and  prejudice.  In  this  respect  history  teaches  us 
the  lesson  of  the  patience  of  hope. 

The  effort  of  Hegel  to  find  in  the  trinity  the  com- 
prehensive formula  which  explains  the  phenomena  of 
nature  and  the  course  of  human  history,  has  been  fol- 
lowed by  what  has  seemed  the  most  destructive  attack 
upon  the  verities  of  the  Christian  faith  in  the  annals 
of  Christianity.  The  criticism  of  the  last  century 
appears  like  trifling  compared  with  the  attempt  of 
Strauss  to  reduce  to  a  myth  the  facts  of  the  gospel 
history.  The  author  of  this  famous  theory  claimed 
to  be  applying  the  teacihing  of  Hegel  more  fully  and 
consistently  when  he  practically  denied  the  historic 
reality  of  the  events  relating  to  the  life  of  Christ, 
making  Christ  Himself  only  an  ideal  creature  of  tlie 
human  imagination.  It  was  fortunate,  if  we  may  so 
speak,  in  a  world  where  God  is  present  as  the  one  con- 
trolling force  in  the  evolution  of  history,  that  the  at- 
tack of  Strauss  should  have  coincided  with  the  eccle- 
siastical revival  whose  object  it  was  to  reassert  with  a 
new  vigor  the  historic  personality  of  Christ,  calling 
attention  anew  to  the  history  of  the  church  as  the  best 
evidence  of  its  reality.  But  dangerous  as  the  attack 
may  seem,  there  is  a  point  of  view  from  which  it  may 
be  regarded  as  a  hopeful  sign  for  the  future  of  the- 
ology. It  shows  that  the  age  has  become  conscious  of 
the  antagonism,  the  deepest,  the  most  significant  that 
is  involved  in  the  true  apprehension  of  Christianity. 


THE   TWO   CONCEPTIONS  OF  CHRIST.      435 

We  have  already  seen  ^  how  the  Latin  church,  when  it 
began  its  independent  career,  lost  the  vision  of  the 
spiritual,  essential  Christ  in  its  effort  to  know  Christ 
after  the  flesh  or  to  realize  His  earthly  existence 
through  a  more  vivid  portrayal  of  His  earthly  environ- 
ment. He  who  was  the  light  that  lighteth  every  man 
that  Cometh  into  the  world,  or  as  Greek  theologians, 
Justin,  Clement,  Origen,  and  Athanasius  had  ex- 
pressed it,  the  Eternal  reason  in  whom  humanity  par- 
ticipated in  virtue  of  its  constitution,  by  whom  the 
world  in  every  age  had  been  enlightened,  by  whom 
even  Socrates  was  a  Christian,  as  Justin  had  said, 
though  but  in  part,  —  this  conception  of  the  higher 
spiritual  Christ,  the  Latin  church  had  sacrificed  in 
order  to  emphasize  and  make  its  own  the  historical  fact 
of  an  incarnation.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that 
when  Christ  after  the  spirit  had  been  once  more  appre- 
hended in  the  fullness  of  His  relationship  to  humanity, 
Christ  after  the  flesh  should  have  seemed  like  a  lim- 
itation which  hindered  the  appreciation  of  His  true 
character.  It  is  not  strange  that  to  Strauss  and 
others,  the  events  recorded  in  the  narrative  of  His  life 
should  have  appeared  as  so  many  efforts  to  express  in 
tangible  forms  the  idea  of  a  being  who  was  beyond 
and  above  the  limitations  of  humanity.  It  may  even 
have  been  necessary  that  for  a  moment  in  the  church's 
history  men  should  have  refused,  like  St.  Paul,  to 
know  Christ  any  more  after  the  flesh,  in  order  that 
they  might  discern  more  clearly  the  spiritual  relation- 
ship by  which  Christ  in  man,  and  no  longer  outside  of 
him,  becomes  the  transforming  power  of  a  new  crea- 
tion. The  work  of  Strauss  has  shown  the  Christian 
world  the  antagonism  in  its  clearest  form  between  the 
1  See  ante^  pp.  141, 142. 


436  RENAISSANCE   OF   THEOLOGY. 

two  ways  of  regarding  Christ  which  have  been  repre- 
sented in  the  Greek  theology  on  the  one  hand  and  in 
the  Latin  on  the  other.  As  the  Latin  church  has 
shown  by  its  history  and  its  influence  on  modern 
thought,  that  if  Christ  be  not  known  after  the  spirit, 
the  incarnation  possesses  no  inner  necessary  meaning 
in  the  history  of  redemption,  so  Strauss  has  demon- 
strated that  if  the  fact  of  an  historical  incarnation  in 
the  person  of  Jesus  be  denied,  it  is  impossible  to  re- 
tain as  a  great  objective  truth  the  spiritual,  essential 
Christ  indwelling  in  humanity.  The  higher  concep- 
tion of  Christ's  person  evaporates  into  thin  air,  it  be- 
comes like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision  which  can- 
not be  disentangled  from  other  dreams,  if  the  fact  be 
doubted  or  denied  of  the  historic  manifestation  in 
Jesus  of  the  fullness  of  the  eternal  God-head.  The 
reconciliation  of  the  two  attitudes  must  be  sought  in 
the  church  in  its  higher  aspects,  as  the  congregation  of 
faithful  men  called  out  from  the  world  to  bear  witness 
to  an  historic  influence  as  well  as  created  by  it.  It 
must  be  sought  further,  in  the  more  definite  rejection 
of  that  pernicious  dualism  which  has  separated  nature 
and  humanity  from  God,  as  though  it  were  beneath 
the  divine  dignity  and  greatness  that  the  Eternal 
should  unite  Himself  in  close  organic  relationship 
with  man.  It  is  a  reconciliation  that  is  possible  be- 
cause it  was  once  achieved  in  the  theology  of  a  people 
who  stood  facing  the  oriental  and  occidental  worlds, 
who  combined  the  subtle  speculative  power  of  the  one 
with  the  practical  bent  and  capacity  of  the  other.  It 
is  a  reconciliation  that  must  be  accomplished  in  the 
heart  and  intellect  of  the  church  before  Christianity 
can  address  itself  with  something  of  its  old  power  to 
the  great  world  of  the  Orient,  which  has  so  long  been 


CONCLUSION,  437 

waiting  for  the  solution  of  the  problems  which  have 
pressed  heavily  upon  its  spirit.  To  this  end,  it  is  a 
mark  of  progress  that  the  issue  should  be  clearly  per- 
ceived.i 

In  concluding  this  sketch  of  the  history  of  Chris- 
tian thought,  we  are  leaving  it  on  the  threshold  of  a 
larger  future.  Modern  theology  in  its  essential  prin- 
ciple has  risen  above  the  negations  of  Latin  Christian- 
ity, whether  in  its  Augustinian  or  Calvinistic  form. 
Things  that  have  been  separated  in  order  to  the  more 
distinct  realization  of  each  are  coming  together  in  a 
comprehensive  unity.  Whatever  may  be  the  difficul- 
ties that  await  adjustment,  and  they  are  many,  it  is  a 
great  step  in  advance  that  we  have  regained  our  confi- 
dence in  human  reason  as  participating  in  Eternal  wis- 
dom. Back  of  all. the  theories  and  imperfect  expla- 
nations of  religious  truth  there  stands  a  silent  judge, 
the  heart  of  that  humanity  which  is  larger  than  in- 
dividual thought.  Such  a  judge  is  quietly  recording 
the  infallible  verdict  against  all  that  is  untrue,  or  ap- 
proving all  that  is  genuine  and  final  in  the  results 
of  sincere  inquiry.  When  the  confusion  that  sur- 
rounds all  efforts  to  reach  the  higher  truth  is  gradually 
cleared  away,  the  judgment  will  be  manifest  and  wis- 
dom will  be  justified  of  all  her  children.     Christian 

1  Substantially  the  same  issue  raised  by  Strauss  had  been  an- 
ticipated among  the  Quakers  in  the  movement  led  by  Hicks 
(1827),  who  pushed  to  an  extreme  the  doctrine  of  the  inner  light, 
denying  all  positive  Christianity. 

Among  the  many  replies  made  to  Strauss,  the  most  valuable 
was  given  by  the  late  lamented  Dr.  Dorner,  in  his  truly  great 
work  on  the  Person  of  Christy  whose  object  is  to  trace  the 
course  of  Christian  thought  which  takes  its  rise  in  an  historic 
personage. 


438  RENAISSANCE  OF  THEOLOGY. 

theology  has  regained  at  last  the  point  where  it  was 
left  by  the  master  minds  of  the  ancient  church.  Latin 
Christianity  is  seen  as  a  parenthesis  in  the  larger 
record  of  the  life  of  Christendom.  The  factors  of  a 
true  theology  are  now  in  our  possession  as  they  have 
never  been  before  in  all  the  church's  history,  —  God, 
humanity,  and  nature,  bound  together  in  indissoluble 
relationship.  The  preparation  begins  to  be  approxi- 
mately complete  for  undertaking  the  result  which  the- 
ology aims  to  achieve,  and  which  it  alone  can  achieve, 
—  a  science  which  shall  embrace  all  knowledge,  be- 
cause it  sees  all  things  in  God.  Even  now  the  church 
holds  the  key  to  the  situation  as  the  collective  body  of 
those  who  live  in  the  consciousness  of  a  relationship 
to  God  in  Christ,  through  the  indwelling  of  an  infinite 
Spirit.  Some  facts  there  are  which  speak  louder  than 
any  words.  The  interest  in  foreign  missions  which 
characterizes  the  church  to-day,  bears  witness  to  the 
deep-seated  conviction  that  the  incarnate  Christ  stands 
in  organic  relationship  to  humanity.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  differences  that  divide  the  Christian  world,  it 
constitutes  a  ground  of  hope  that  the  Catholic  church, 
as  a  whole,  has  never  committed  itself  to  any  theory 
of  its  existence  which  can  prevent  the  congregation  of 
faithful  men  from  expanding  itself  into  the  fuller  life 
of  a  redeemed  humanity,  where  the  communion  of 
men  shall  become  the  communion  of  saints,  and  God 
shall  have  fulfilled  the  meaning  and  the  promise  of 
the  incarnation. 


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Alvan  Lamson,  D.  D. 

The  Church  op  the  First  Three  Centuries  ;  or,  No- 
tices of  the  Lives  and  Opinions  of  the  Early  Fathers,  with  special 
reference  to  the  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  ;  illustrating  its  late  origin 
and  gradual  formation.    Revised  and  enlarged  edition.    8vo,  $2.50. 

Lucy  Larcom. 

Breathings   of   the   Better   Life.     "  Little   Classic  '* 

style.     18rao,  $1.25;  half  calf,  $3.00. 

A  book  of  choice  selections  from  the  best  religious  writers  of  all 
times. 

Henry  C.  Lea. 
Sacerdotal    Celibacy    in    the   Christian   Church. 

Second  Edition,  considerably  enlarged.     Svo,  $4.50. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  works  that  America  has  produced.  Since 
the  great  history  of  Dean  Milman,  I  know  no  work  in  English  which 
has  thrown  more  light  on  the  moral  condition  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  none  which  is  more  fitted  to  dispel  the  gross  illusions  concerning 
that  period  which  Positive  writers  and  writers  of  a  certain  ecclesiasti- 
cal school  have  conspired  to  sustain,  —  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  in  History 
of  European  Morals. 

Samuel  Longfellow  and  Samuel  Johnson. 

Hymns  of  the  Spirit.     16mo,  roan,  $1.25. 
A  collection  of  remarkable  excellence. 

W.  A.  McVickar,  D.  D. 

Life  op  the  Rev.  John  McVickar,  S.  T.  D.  With  por- 
trait.   Crown  Svo,  $2.00. 

William  Mountford. 

EuTHANASY;  OF,  Happy  Talk  towards  the  End  of  Life. 
New  Edition,  12mo,  gilt  top,  $2.00. 

Rev.  T.  Mozley. 

Reminiscences,  chiefly  of  Oriel  College  and  the  Oxford 

Movement.     2  vols.  16mo,  $3.00  ;  half  calf,  $6.00. 

Many  before  now  —  Oakley,  Fronde,  Kennard,  not  to  mention 
Newman  himself  —  have  contribnted  to  the  story  of  the  Tractarian 


8  Religious  Publications  of 

Movement.  None  of  these,  not  even  the  famous  Apologia,  veill  com- 
pare with  the  volumes  now  before  us  in  respect  to  minute  fullness, 
close  personal  observation,  and  characteristic  touches.  —  Professor 
Pattison,  in  The  Academy  (London). 

Elisha  Mulford,  LL.  D. 
The  Republic  of  God.     8vo,  $2.00. 

A  book  which  will  not  be  mastered  by  hasty  reading,  nor  by  a  cool, 
scientific  dissection.  We  do  not  remember  that  this  country  has 
lately  produced  a  speculative  work  of  more  originality  and  force.  .  .  . 
The  book  is  a  noble  one  —  broad-minded,  deep,  breathing  forth  an 
ever-present  consciousness  of  things  unseen.  It  is  a  mental  and  moral 
tonic  which  might  do  us  all  good.  —  The  Critic  (New  York) 

No  book  on  the  statement  of  the  great  truths  of  Christianity,  at 
once  so  fresh,  so  clear,  so  fundamental,  and  so  fully  grasping  and 
solving  the  religious  problems  of  our  time,  h&.s  yet  been  written  by 
any  American.  —  Advertiser  (Boston). 

It  is  the  most  important  contribution  to  theological  literature  thus 
far  made  by  any  American  writer.  —  The  Churchman  (New  York). 

Rev.  T.  T.  Munger. 

The  Freedom  of  Faith.     Sermons.     16mo,  $1.50. 

Contents  :  Prefatory  Essay  :  The  New  Theology  ;  On  Reception 
of  New  Truth ;  God  our  Shield ;  God  our  Reward ;  Love  to  the 
Christ  as  a  Person;  The  Christ's  Pity;  The  Christ  as  a  Preacher ; 
Land-Tenure;  Moral  Environment;  Immortality  and  Science;  Im- 
mortality and  Nature  ;  Immortality  as  Taught  by  the  Christ ;  The 
Christ's  Treatment  of  Death;  The  Resurrection  from  the  Dead; 
The  Method  of  Penalty ;  Judgment ;  Life  a  Gain  ;  Things  to  be 
Awaited. 

On  the  Threshold.  Familiar  Lectures  to  yourig  peo- 
ple on  Purpose,  Friends  and  Companions,  Manners,  Thrift,  Self- 
Reliance,  etc.     16mo,  gilt  top,  $1.00. 

Lamps  and  Paths.    Sermons  for  Children.    16mo,  $1.00. 

J.  A.  W.  Neander. 

General   History  of  the    Christian    Religion  and 
Church.     Translated  from  the  German  by  Rev.  Joseph  Torret, 
Professor  in  the  University  of  Vermont.     With  an  Index  volume. 
The  set,  with  Index,  6  vols.,  $20.00.   Index  volume,  separate,  $3.00. 
"Neander's  Church  History"  is  one  of  the  most  profound,  care- 
fully considered,  deeply  philosophized,  candid,  truly  liberal,  and  in- 
dependent historical   works  that  have  ever  been  written.      In  all 
these  respects  it  stands  head  and  shoulders  above  almost  any  other 
church  history  in  existence.  —  Professor  Calvin  E.  Stowe,  Andover, 


Houghtorty  Mifflin  &  Co.  9 

Illustrated  New  Testament. 

The  New  Testament  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ.  With  cDgravings  on  wood  from  designs  of  Fra 
Angelico,  Pietro  Perugino,  Francesco  Francia,  Lorenzo  di  Credi, 
Fra  Bartolommeo,  Titian,  Raphael,  Gaudenzio  Ferrari,  Daniele  di 
Volterra,  and  others.  Royal  4to,  full  gilt,  540  pages,  $10.00  ;  full 
morocco,  $20.00. 

Timothy  Otis  Paine,  LL.  D. 

Solomon's  Temple  and  Capitol,  Ark  of  the  Flood  and 
Tabernacle ;  or,  The  Holy  Houses  of  the  Hebrew,  Chaldee,  Syriac, 
Samaritan,  Septuagint,  Coptic,  and  Itala  Scriptures,  Josephus, 
Talmud,  and  Rabbis.  With  42  full-page  Plates  and  120  Text- 
Cuts,  from  drawings  by  the  author.  In  four  parts,  each  $5.00. 
(Sold  by  subscription.) 

Blaise  Pascal. 

Thoughts,  Letters,  and  Opuscules.  Translated  from 
the  French  by  O.  W.  Wight,  A.  M.,  with  Introductory  Notices 
and  Notes.     12mo,  $2.25. 

Provincial  Letters.  A  new  Translation,  with  Histori- 
cal Introduction  and  Notes,  by  Rev.  Thomas  McCrie,  preceded 
by  a  Life  of  Pascal,  a  Critical  Essav,  and  a  Biographical  Notice. 
12mo,  $2.25;  the  set,  2  vols,  half  calf,  $8.00. 

Peep  of  Day  Series. 

Peep  op  Day  Series.  Comprising  "  The  Peep  of  Day," 
"Precept  upon  Precept,"  and  "Line  upon  Line."  3  vols.  16mo, 
each  50  cents  ;  the  set,  $1 .50. 

Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps. 
The  Gates  Ajar.     16mo,  $1.50. 
Beyond  the  Gates.     16mo,  $1.25. 

Prayers  of  the  Ages. 

Prayers  of  the  Ages.  Compiled  by  Caroline  S. 
Whitmarsh,  one  of  the  editors  of  "  Hymns  of  the  Ages."  16ino, 
$1.50. 

Rev.  James  Reed. 
Swedenborg  and  the  New  Church.     16mo,  $1.25. 

Sampson  Reed. 

Observations   on  the  Growth   of  the  Mind.     New 

Edition.     With  Biographical  Sketch  of  the  Author  by  Rev.  James 
Rebd,  and  a  portrait.     16mo.  $1.00. 


lO  Religious  Publications  of 

E.  Reuss. 

History  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  of  the  New  Tes- 

tament.  By  Eduard  (Wilhelm  Eugen)  Keuss,  Professor  Ordi- 
navius  in  the  Evangelical  Theological  Faculty  of  the  Emperor 
William's  University,  Strassburg,  Germany.  Translated,  with  nu- 
merous Bibliographical  Additions,  by  Edward  L.  Houghton, 
A.  M.     2  vols.  8vo,  $5.00. 

Edward  Robinson,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

Harmony  of  the  Four  Gospels,  in  Greek.  According 
to  the  Text  of  Hahn.     By  Edward  Robixson,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 

Professor  of  Biblical  Literature  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary, 
New  York.  With  Notes.  New  Edition.  Revised  by  M.  B.  Rid- 
dle, Professor  in  the  Hartford  Theological  Seminary.     8vo,  $2.00. 

Harmony  of  the  Four  Gospels,  in  English,  according 

to  the  Common  Version.     With  Notes.    New  PMirion.     12mo,  75 

cents. 
Biblical  Researches  in  Palestine.     3  vols.  8vo,  with 

maps,  $10.00.     Price  of  the  maps  alone,  $1.00. 

Dean  Stanley  said  of  these  volumes :  "  They  are  amongst  the  very 
few  books  of  modern  literature  of  which  I  can  truly  say  that  1  have 
read  every  word.  I  have  read  them  under  circumstances  which  riv- 
eted my  attention  upon  them  :  while  riding  on  the  back  of  a  camel ; 
while  traveling  on  horseback  through  the  hills  of  Palestine ;  und.er 
the  shadow  of  my  tent,  when  I  came  in  weary  from  the  day's  journey. 
These  were  the  scenes  in  which  I  first  became  acquainted  with  the 
work  of  Dr.  Robinson.  But  to  that  work  I  have  felt  that  I  and  all 
students  of  Biblical  literature  owe  a  debt  that  can  never  be  effaced." 

Physical  Geography  of  the  Holy  Land.     A  Supple- 
ment to  "  Biblical  Researches  in  Palestine."     8vo,  $3.50. 
A  capital  summary  of  our  present  knowledge.  —  London  Athenceum. 

Hebrew  and  English  Lexicon  of  the  Old  Testament, 
including  the  Biblical  Chaldee.  From  the  Latin  of  William  Ge- 
SENiDs,  by  Edward  Robinson.  New  Edition.  8vo,  half  russia, 
$6.00. 

English-Hebrew  Lexicon:  Being  a  complete  Verbal 
Index  to  Geseuius'  Hebrew  Lexicon  as  translated  by  Robinson. 
By  Joseph  Lewis  Potter,  A.  M.     8vo,  $2.00. 

A  Greek  and  English  Lexicon  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. New  Edition,  revised  and  in  great  part  rewritten.  8vo, 
$4.00. 

Professor  Josiah  Royce. 
Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy.     12mo,  $2.00. 

Rev.  Thomas  Scott. 
The   Bible,   with  Explanatory  Notes,    Practical 


Houghtouy  Mifflin  &  Co.  II 

Observations,    and    Copious    Marginal    References.      By 
Rev.  Thomas  Scott.     6  vols,  royal  8vo,  sheep,  SI 5.00, 
I  believe  it  exhibits  more  of  the  mind  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Scriptures 
than  any  other  woric  of  the  kind  extant.  —  Rev.  Andrew  Fuller. 

J.  C.   Shairp. 
Culture  and  Religion  in  some  op  their  Relations. 

16rao,  gilt  top,  $1.25. 

A.  P.  Sinnett. 

Esoteric  Buddhism.     With  an  Introduction  prepared  ex- 
pressly for  the  American  Edition,  by  the  author.     16mo,  $1.25. 

William  Smith. 

Dictionary    op  the    Bible,  comprising  its  Antiquities, 
Biography,    Geography,    and    Natural    History.      By    William 
Smith.      Edited   by   Professor  Horatio  Balch   Hackett  and 
Ezra  Abbot,  LL.  D.      In   four  volumes,  8vo,  3667  pages,  with 
596  illustrations.     Cloth,   beveled  edges,  strongly  bound,  $20.00  ; 
full  sheep,  $25.00 ;  half  morocco,  $30.00 ;  half  calf,  extra,  $30.00 ; 
half  russia,  $35.00  ;  full  morocco,  gilt,  $40.00  ;  tree  calf,  $45.00. 
There  are  several  American  editions  of  Smith's  Dictionary  of  the 
Bible,  but  this  edition  comprises  not  only  the  contents  of  the  original 
English  edition,   unabridged,   but  very  considerable   and   important 
additions  by  the  editors.  Professors  Hackett  and  Abbot,  and  twenty- 
six  other  eminent  American  scholars. 

This  edition  has  500  more  pages  than  the  English,  and  100  more 
illustrations ;  more  than  a  thousand  errors  of  reference  in  the  Eng- 
lish edition  are  corrected  in  this,  and  an  Index  of  Scripture  Illus- 
trated is  added. 

No  similar  work  in  our  own  or  in  any  other  language  is  for  a  mo- 
ment to  be  compared  with  it. —  Quarterly  Review  (London). 

Newman  Smyth,  D.  D. 

Social  Problems.    Sermons  to  Workingmen.    8vo,  paper 
covers,  20  cents. 

Robert  South,  D.  D. 
Sermons  Preached  upon  Several  Occasions.     With 

a  Memoir  of  the  author.     5  vols.  8vo,  $15.00. 

Harriet  Beecher  Stowe. 
Religious  Poems.     Illustrated.     16mo,  $1.50.^ 
Joseph  P.  Thompson,  D.  D. 

American  Comments  on  European  Questions,  Inter- 
national and  Religions.    8vo,  $3.00. 

Henry  Thornton. 
Fjlmilt  Praters,  and  Peatebs  on  the  Ten  Command- 


12  Religious  Publications. 

MENTS,  with  a  Commentary  on  the  Swmon  on  the  Mount,  etc. 

By  Henry  Thornton.     Edited  by  the  late  Bishop  Eastburn,  of 

Massachusetts.     16mo,  $1.50. 

Probably  no  published  volume  of  family  prayers  has  ever  been  the 
vehicle  of  so  much  heart-felt  devotion  as  these.  They  are  what 
prayers  should  be  —  fervent,  and  yet  perfectly  simple.  —  Christian 
Witness. 

Professor  C.  P.  Tiele. 

History  of  the  Egyptian  Religion.  Translated  from 
the  Dutch,  with  the  cooperation  of  the  author,  by  James  Ballin- 
GAL.     8vo,  gilt  top,  $3.00. 

Henry  Vaughan. 

See  Herbert. 

Jones  Very. 

Poems.      With   ^,  Memoir   by   William   P.   Andrews. 

16mo,  gilt  top,  $1.50. 

Poems  unique  in  their  quality  among  American  poetry,  alike  for 
their  spiritual  intensity  and  their  absolute  sincerity.  —  Charles 
Eliot  Norton. 

E.  M.  Wherry. 

A  Comprehensive  Commentary  on  the  Quran  :  Com- 
prising Sale's  Translation  and  Preliminary  Discourse,  with  addi- 
tional Notes  and  Emendations.  Together  with  a  complete  Index 
to  the  Text,  Preliminary  Discourse  and  Notes.  3  vols.  8vo,  gilt 
top,  each  $4.50. 

John  G.  Whittier. 

Text  and  Verse.  Selections  from  the  Bible  and  from 
the  Writings  of  John  G.  Whittier,  chosen  by  Gertrude  W.  Cart- 
land.    32mo,  75  cents. 

John  Woolman. 

The  Journal  of  John  Woolman.     With  an  Introduc- 
tion by  John  G.  Whittier.     I6mo,  $1.50. 
A  perfect  gem.     His  is  a  beautiful  soul.     An  illiterate  tailor,  he 

writes  in  a  style  of  the  most  exquisite  purity  and  grace.     His  moral 

2ualities  are  transferred  to  his  writings.     His  religion  is  love.     His 
ihristianity  is  most  inviting :  it  is  fascinating.  —  H.  Grabs  Robin- 
son, in  his  Diary. 

N.  B.  A  Catalogue  of  all  the  publications  of  Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.,  containing  portraits  of  many  distinguished  authors,  and  a  full  Cat- 
alogue of  their  Religious  Books,  with  critical  notices  and  full  particulars 
in  regard  to  them,  will  be  sent  to  any  address  on  application. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO.,  Boston,  Mass. 

11  East  Seventeenth  Street,  New  Yobk. 


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